


lost

by foolondahill17



Series: things Dean doesn't tell Sam [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Attachment Disorder, Codependency, Crying Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Needs a Hug, Dean Winchester is straight-up not having a good time, Depressed Dean Winchester, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Dean Winchester, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sure John tries but this isn't about him, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Panic Attacks, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Stanford Era (Supernatural), Suicidal Dean Winchester, Whump, bobby is a good dad, like ridiculously self-indulgent whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-02 14:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolondahill17/pseuds/foolondahill17
Summary: Dad’s in Minnesota doing God-knows-what, Sammy’s at Stanford, and Dean’s twenty-two when he thinks about killing himself for the first time. In which Dean’s on a hunt in Rapid City, South Dakota, and everything goes to shit. Bobby comes to the rescue. Eventually.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: It’s definitely not a secret on the show that Dean deals with suicidal ideation, even if he never says it in so many words – like every time he says “I’m tired,” he’s really saying “I want to die.” So, warnings include strong themes of suicide throughout, mentions of side characters’ past suicides, including the suicide of a child, and Dean’s overall bad headspace and poor regard for mental health (and physical health, but what’s new?). 
> 
> Also some medical stuff in later chapters that make be a little *urg* if you don't like that type of thing. 
> 
> And language. Cuz you expect me to believe Dean Winchester says "freaking"?

It’s mid-November, cold and drizzly. It’s been one-hundred and fifteen days since Sammy left. But it’s not like Dean’s counting. Dean’s alone in a Walmart parking lot, and he doesn’t know what to do. 

Dean’s not stupid. As soon as Dad picked up that Sierra Grande in August, Dean knew. Seventeen days after Sammy left, _if you walk out that door, don't bother coming back_ still rattling around in Dean’s head, Dean knew Dad was going to leave, too. It was only a matter of time. 

Dad’s been itching to leave for years. For eighteen years, if Dean’s being honest. After the fire took out the only thing Dad ever really cared about – which isn’t fair, Dean knows, because Dad cares about Sammy, too. That’s why Dad’s so pissed about Sammy leaving. For eighteen years Dad’s been taking every chance he could lay his hands on to get away for a couple of days, a week, a month, two months. And now that Sammy’s gone, Dad doesn’t have to keep up pretenses anymore. 

And Dean can’t blame Dad for leaving. If Dean were in Dad’s place, Dean would have left, too. Hell, Dean thinks and taps the barrel of his shotgun against his thigh, maybe he still will. 

Because it’s not like Dean’s been much help lately. _Quit dragging your feet, dammit,_ Dad says it on every hunt now. Maybe it’s just because Dad’s taking out his anger about Sammy leaving. Or maybe it’s because it’s true: Dean’s holding Dad back. Dean’s missing easy shots and coming back to the motel drunk and screwing up every damn thing he puts his hands on. What’s new? 

It’s like Dean’s a thirteen-year-old kid again, back when Dad first started letting him tag along on regular hunts. He’s inexperienced, slow, and dumb. Not worth the time or effort. And he’s stupid for thinking that, now with Sammy’s gone, maybe he and Dad could really partner up. Maybe it wouldn’t just be a father and son act anymore. Maybe Dean could finally prove he could pull his own weight. Maybe Dad – 

But Dad’s gone. 

The thought sticks in Dean’s lungs. Coats his breath in tar, so Dean can barely drag it up his throat. Dean doesn’t cry. His eyes sting; he knows they’re ringed with red. And his damn bottom lip trembles. But Dean doesn’t cry. 

_That’s enough, Deano,_ Dad lays a heavy hand on Dean’s small shoulder. Dean’s five-years-old and wailing about leaving the trailer park after four months that almost felt normal: there are other kids around for Dean to play with and a mom in one of the trailers that comes by with chocolate chip cookies and lasagna sometimes. And Dad’s been home. Almost every day. _You don’t wanna scare Sammy, do you? You gotta be brave for your little brother. Don’t let him see you cry._

But now Dean’s alone in a Walmart parking lot. Five days ago, Dad and Dean took care of a poltergeist who’d found a home in a local library outside Kearney, Nebraska. Four days ago, Dad got that mysterious phone call that made the blood run out of his face, made him pack his bag with trembling fingers, choke back a couple swallows of JD, and tell Dean something’s come up in Minnesota. 

And then Dad leaves, Sierra Grande roaring and kicking up gravel. Dean decides he isn’t going to pay for another night in the empty, echoing motel room, and packs his bags, too. He finds a Walmart parking lot to spend the night in, parks alongside eighteen-wheelers and campers, curls in the backseat of the Impala with his scratchy, blood-stained wool blanket from the trunk and a pillow he stole from the motel. He drives listlessly around town for the next three days, stopping for alcohol and food when he remembers he’s supposed to be hungry. And he ends up in the Walmart parking lot at night. He thinks about calling – 

Calling someone maybe. 

Calling Sammy. 

Telling his brother to come back. Come back because Dean can’t stand it. Can’t stand the expanding, gaping feeling of _alone_ in his chest. Can’t stand listening to that last fight replay his head – the only thing he’s got left of Sammy now. And Dean can’t do it anymore. He doesn’t want to do it anymore. And maybe if he told Sammy – told his little brother that he’s alone in a Walmart parking lot and there’s a shotgun in his lap and he doesn’t know what to do – 

But Sammy left. Dad left. Mom left. Everyone leaves. 

Just this once, Dean wants to be the one who leaves. 

Dean switches the shotgun’s safety off. He switches it on. Off on off on off. Like a nervous tick. His hands are shaking. _Stupid stupid stupid,_ he berates himself, _fucking coward. Can’t even hold a damn gun straight. _

Dean’s six when Dad teaches him how to shoot: strong, large hands guiding Dean’s small fingers around the trigger, nestling the stock against Dean’s shoulder, warning him about the recoil. And Dean likes how close Dad is. His warm, firm body is tight against Dean’s, breath hot against his neck and he can feel Dad’s whiskers against his skin, smells like sour sweat and whiskey. It took a while for Dean to get used to the smell of whiskey, but he likes it now, because it smells like Dad. John Winchester’s not much for physical contact. Dean can’t really remember the last time Dad hugged him. Dad still hugs Sammy, but Sammy’s only two, so maybe Dad hugged Dean when Dean was that little, too. 

_Fuck,_ Dean thinks. He’s alone in a Walmart parking lot. The traffic light above flickers lazily in a way that tells Dean there’s something wrong with the electrical circuit; it’s not anything he should be concerned about. 

_Fuck this,_ Dean thinks and brings the barrel to the soft underside of his chin. Dean’s seen enough death to know how to do it right; he’s not going to fool around with sleeping pills or a blade, even if he can pinpoint an artery, because he doesn’t want to miss. 

It’s wrong. Some distant, niggling part of Dean knows it’s wrong. Knows that, when he goes out, he’s supposed to go out swinging. Supposed to go down under the claws of some monster. Taken out while ganking the thing that killed Mom and destroyed Dad and made Sammy leave. Dean knows that Dad will be disappointed when he finds out. That maybe Sammy will be sorry. 

But maybe Dad and Sammy won’t find out. Won’t know for a few weeks, at least. Maybe Dad won’t come looking. Maybe Dad won’t call Sammy. Dean didn’t write a note. Maybe he should have written a fucking note. It’s easy enough to track down Sammy’s address; Dean could have – just to say goodbye. 

Dean blinks and his lashes come away wet. He didn’t think it was going to be so hard. He’s killed so many things before: just pull the trigger, dodn’t think about it, don’t hesitate. _That’s it, Deano,_ Dad says, and helps Dean aim through the rifle scope, _firm pressure on the trigger._

Dean takes a deep breath. Starts counting, _one two three four,_ tells himself when he gets to ten, when he gets to twenty or thirty, _thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three,_ when he counts to a minute he’ll – 

He’s going to get blood all over the Impala’s seats and dash. He didn’t even think about ruining the car – his car, he reminds himself, now that Dad’s got his Godzilla Sierra Grande. And maybe he should have hotwired himself another car. 

He’s lost count. Dean starts up again. _Four five six seven,_ and by the time he reaches twenty-nine he knows he’s not going to do it. The realization sinks like a rock in his stomach. Makes bile rise in Dean’s throat. He drops the gun. 

_Coward coward worthless coward._ It’s a mantra in his head. _Can’t even do this right. Can’t even finish the damn job._ He picks up the half-empty bottle of Jack he left by his feet and swigs it until he isn’t thinking anything at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean wakes up to the sharp tap of rain on the roof. His head aches: a shooting pain that spreads from his temples down his jaw. Nausea swims in his stomach. It’s bitter cold. The gun fell off his lap sometime during the night, and now it’s on the floormat, wedged under the gas pedal. Dean bends to pick it up, notices the safety’s still off, and figures he was lucky it didn’t accidentally go off when it hit the floor. 

The parking lot is starting to fill up with early morning shoppers. The Impala is given a wide berth by women wearing sweatpants, pushing kids in shopping carts, who see him as some junkie who’s passed out after a night of shooting heroin. Dean probably has about fifteen more minutes before someone calls a manager or the cops on him, and he digs his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

A missed text lights up his screen. It’s from Bobby, and Dean swallows the disappointed that it’s not from Dad. Not from Sammy, but it’s about time Dean stopped hoping his brother is going to call; Dean’s not stupid. 

_Vengeful spirit outside rapid city,_ Bobby says. 

Dean knows what Bobby’s doing. The last time Bobby talked to any of the Winchesters was on the other end of a rifle, itchy finger on the trigger. That was back in March, when Dad found out Sammy gave the colleges Bobby’s address for the fucking acceptance letters. And Dad said a bunch of rotten things about _quit butting in where you’re not wanted, Singer._ And Bobby shot back with _you may be their father, Winchester, but you don’t know shit. Why don’t you pull you head out of your ass and see what you’re doing to them? Look at Sam! Look at Dean – _

Dad throws a punch. Bobby blocks him with an elbow to the forehead. Dad reels back, comes back swinging, but then Bobby cocks his rifle. Amazingly, it’s Sammy who intervenes; he jumps in front of Bobby’s gun and shoves Dad out of the door, cursing furiously and tossing an apologetic look at Bobby over his shoulder. That’s supposed to be Dean’s job: damage control – he’s certainly had enough practice with Sammy and Dad – but he’s rooted to the spot, _look at Dean_ clanging inside his skull. Look at Dean? What’s wrong with Dean? _Sammy’s_ the troublemaker here, not Dean.

So Dean knows what Bobby’s text means now, knows why he texted Dean instead of Dad, knows that this is as close to a peace offering Bobby Singer’s ever offered anyone. 

Dean’s hands are freezing. His fingers barely work as he taps out a reply: _you can’t handle it?_

Bobby’s response is almost immediate, which is why Dean knows it’s a lie – _on the trail of a couple ghouls by the border_ – because, if Bobby was really hunting, he wouldn’t have an eye on his cellphone. 

Kearney is six and a half hours from Rapid City. Dean is perfectly capable of getting there, perfectly capable of taking out a vengeful spirit on his own. It’s just a milk run. But Dean doesn’t want to. He wants – 

to go to Palo Alto. He wants to break into Sammy’s dorm room. If he can’t convince his brother to come back, then maybe Sammy would let Dean crash for a little while. Maybe Sammy will listen if Dean explains that Dad left and Dean’s alone and Dean doesn’t have anywhere ese to go. 

_Shit_, Dean thinks and turns his keys in the ignition. The Impala sputters for a minute as it works against the cold, but soon enough the engine turns over. 

_It’ll be gone by tonight,_ Dean sends Bobby a text back. He doesn’t tell him he’s coming alone. Doesn’t tell him that Dad left. Doesn’t tell him that Dean almost blew his brains out last night, even though he thinks maybe that’s something Bobby would like to know. 

Instead he yanks the lever into drive and tears out of the parking lot, heading toward the highway and South Dakota. 

OOO

Mrs. Olivia Brennan is in her mid-fifties, red-haired and red-faced, but that’s probably because she’s crying. 

“I don’t understand,” she breathes, sitting across the dining room table from Dean, cradling a cooling cup of coffee in her trembling hands. “My husband – the insurance company already said –”

There’s a wall of photographs behind Dean. He scanned them when he first came in. Olivia and Tom Brennan in various stages of life: wedding photos, at the Grand Canyon, a White Sox game, Ireland with lots of sheep and green hills. No children. Just the two of them, arms around waists and smiling for the camera. They look happy. 

“I understand, Mrs. Brennan,” Dean responds patiently. This is Sammy’s gig. Sammy’s good with the civilians and shell-shocked witnesses. “But we like to conduct our own investigation before we make any formal decisions about compensation.”

“I don’t know what you could possibly find,” Mrs. Brennan shrugs helplessly. There’s something in her eyes now: anger, maybe. Mistrust. Dean doesn’t think he’s quite selling his act. Monkey suit aside, it’s easier when Dean has someone older to play off of, because Dean’s been called baby-faced and pretty by enough jerks in bars to know that, maybe at sixteen, with his height and build, he could pass for twenty, but now at twenty-two he’s lucky if he passes for eighteen. 

“My husband,” Mrs. Brennan takes a deep breath. The maybe-anger in her eyes solidifies into steely resolve, and Dean suddenly understands that it’s not junior-level insurance agent Bloom that she’s angry at. “My husband killed himself, Mr. Bloom. You’re not going to turn up anything different in your investigation.”

Dean’s stomach clenches. _One two three four_ he remembers and tries not to remember anything else. Under the table, he taps his fingers against his thigh. Dean knows most of his own tells – Dad’s certainly pointed them out enough – but Dean also knows that his tells don’t show up when he’s about to lie; they come when he gets too close to the truth. 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brennan,” Dean forces the words up his throat. He thinks he still sounds normal. “But I have to ask. Did your husband give any indication that he was going to –”

“Slice his wrists in the bathtub?” Mrs. Brennan wants to sound fierce, Dean can tell, but instead her eyes well with tears again. Her voice drops to a whisper, “My husband was depressed, Mr. Bloom. Had been for years. He – Tom drank too much. He went to a psychologist. He even tried medication after I – I begged him. I’d hoped the new house would do him some good. Tom –”

Dean’s fairly certain he’s going to throw up. It’s just because he’s hungover. _Sonofabitch._

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brennan,” Dean echoes. “If you think of anything further to tell me, please don’t hesitate to call.” He slides a card across the table, relying on muscle memory because he can’t feel his fingers. 

“Of course,” Mrs. Brennan stares at the card on the table, doesn’t look up. “If you need to reach me, I’m staying at my sister’s in town. I – I can’t sleep here after –”

“I understand,” Dean says. He knows he’s supposed to ask about flickering lights, about rats in the walls, about strange drops in temperature. Dean’s mouth is dry. He runs his tongue over his teeth. “Do you mind if I use your restroom?”

Mrs. Brennan doesn’t speak. She looks so tired. She nods her head, points mutely at the stairs in the corner. 

In the bathroom, which smells like bleach, Dean doesn’t bother digging out his EMF detector. He closes his eyes and sees bloodstains on white linoleum. Then, he dry heaves over the toilet, trying to be as quiet as possible so he doesn’t alarm Mrs. Brennan. 

OOO

There have been a handful of suicides in the Brennan’s house over the past thirty-five years. One hanging, two downed bottles of sleeping pills, one carbon monoxide poisoning with a car in the garage, one pistol to the temple, and Tom’s sliced wrists in the bathtub makes six. So, Dean’s fairly certain things aren’t as simple as Mrs. Brennan thinks they are. Dean’s either dealing with some kind of curse or cursed object, a ghost that gets its kicks from murdering people and making it look like suicides, or a ghost that somehow convinces people to pull the plug. 

Bobby thought it was a vengeful spirit, so Dean starts there. Problem is, with that high a body count, any one of those suckers could be the culprit, which means he’s got an afternoon at the library to look forward to, and, dammit, but this job was a helluva lot easier when Sammy – because research is the only part of the job that his brother ever remotely got off on, the nerd.

Sammy’s absence is more present then his company ever was. Dean sees him everywhere: in the crushing emptiness of the backseat, the missing boat-sized shoes he’s supposed to trip over on the way to the bathroom, the eyeroll across a diner table when Dean makes a dirty joke about the waitress. 

Dean waits for the dial-up internet to load local death records as he flips through archived newspapers. It’s smarter to start at the beginning, trace it back to where it all started. 

Her name is Lily Dodds. In 1966 she was thirteen-years-old when her father came home to find her dangling in the stairwell, and normally newspapers try to keep that sort of thing hush hush out of respect for the family, or whatever, but in this case there was a suspicion that her dad had murdered her because she was such a sweet, happy girl and he was such an angry man, a low-life drunk who left her alone for weeks at a time while he chased women and liquor. 

Dean traces her story in the newspapers, reads about how her father was acquitted on a hooker’s alibi. He fled town without claiming his daughter’s body. She was cremated, but the town raised enough money to bury the ashes in the cemetery next to her mother’s grave, who died in childbirth. Dean searches _James Dodds_ on the internet and comes up with an obituary from ’95: lousy sonofabitch was killed in a drunk driving accident, serves him right. 

Dean’s not sure where the wave of anger comes from, but suddenly he can barely breathe through the rage pounding through his body. He curls his hands into fists, so tight his fingernails bite into his palms. Fucking sonofabitch had it coming to him. 

Dean struggles to swallow down his anger. His internet’s about to time out, so he shoves up from his chair. 

He doesn’t have what he came for. He still doesn’t know what’s behind these killings, but the easiest way to find out would be staking-out the Brennan’s house tonight. The place will be empty. Dean will just hang around until the ghost shows its face, proceed from there once he knows who’s grave he’s supposed to be digging up, and then he’ll get the hell out. Drive until he’s far enough he can’t hear the silence where his brother’s voice is supposed to be. 

Go somewhere he doesn’t have to think about father’s leaving their kids. Coming home to find ‘em swinging from a ceiling fan. 

OOO

_When you’re done with the job, why don’t you all spend the night here?_ Bobby’s text waits for Dean back in the car. Dean wants to ask where the ghouls got off to, but maybe it’s not the greatest idea to catch Bobby with his pants down. 

He chucks his phone into the passenger side of the bench without answering. Bobby still doesn’t know that it’s just Dean working this case. Dean could text him back, could tell him he needs backup, tell him he doesn’t know what he’s working with here, tell him he’s about to spend the night in a house with a ghost that wants Dean to kill himself. 

But Bobby doesn’t need to hear about that. Dean can take care of himself. He doesn’t need Bobby. He doesn’t need Dad. He doesn’t need – 

Dean hasn’t eaten anything since last night, when he had a burger and four bottles of Heineken. He’s still nauseas, but now it’s the roiling, hollow feeling of an empty belly. He’s not hungry, but he’s still not stupid, even though he knows Dad would tell him he’s doing a pretty good impression of it. He knows he should eat something if he wants to be alert for tonight. 

He pulls over at a gas station for a soggy, plastic-wrapped sandwich and grabs a six-pack on the way out. He barely chokes down the sandwich, wipes his mouth with his sleeve, and follows it up with three beers, one after another until he’s warm and there’s a pleasant buzz in the back of Dean’s head, until it’s harder to think about things. Not about Lily Dodds hanging herself because of her drunk, absent dad, not about Sammy at school, not Dad in Minnesota, not Dean’s still-loaded sawed-off in the backseat. 

The car. His car. Fuck. His car is a mess. The seats are littered with takeout wrappers, the floor full of empty bottles. It smells like dirty clothes, stale alcohol, and cheap food: ketchup and grease. 

“Sorry, girl,” Dean whispers, unconsciously stroking the steering wheel. _Sorry, Baby._ Dad took better care of her than Dean’s done. Just add one more thing to Dean’s fuck-up list. 

It’s dark by now. The wind’s picked up. Dean can hear it howling outside the windows. Raindrops slither down the windshield. He shoves the Impala into drive and heads toward Mrs. Brennan’s house. 

Sammy’d pitch a hissy fit about Dean driving after drinking. Sammy’d insist on driving. Sammy’s –

Gone. 

Every time he remembers, it’s like something’s torn loose from his chest, steadily chewing at the bleeding pit Sammy left when he ripped free. Someday, it’s going to eat him alive. Swallow him from the inside out. 

And Dean’s not drunk. Even on a practically empty stomach, it takes more than three beers to get Dean drunk. Once or twice he blinks too slow and finds the car veering over the center double line, but there’s no one else on the road, so Dean’s fine. 

“Shut up, Sammy,” he mutters under his breath. 

He parks the Impala on the side of the road outside Mrs. Brennan’s house. The driveway’s empty, which means she’s already left for her sister’s. The house is in the middle of the woods, fifteen minutes outside of town, and Dean can understand why Mrs. Brennan hoped the change of scenery might be good for her husband. It’s peaceful out here, probably pretty when it’s not wet, dead November and cold as balls. 

Dean steps out of the car and is immediately hit by a shock of icy air and a sheet of chilly rain. He’s just wearing a thin flannel over a t-shirt. There’s his jacket tossed somewhere in the backseat, but he doesn’t want to waste the energy rooting it out. 

He heads to the trunk, packs his duffle with the EMF detector, a couple crowbars, a bag of rock salt, and there’s gotta be a smarter way of using that shit. What’s Dean supposed to do, toss handfuls of it in a ghost’s faces? Yeah. Real fucking terrifying. It’d be a hell of a lot easier if he could just load it into his shotgun. 

Dean shoulders his bag and fists a flashlight, trudges through the damp grass to the quiet, dark house. 

It’s easy enough to jimmy the lock and slip inside. Dean’s glad to get away from the rain and cold. The house is still. Boards creak and windows rattle from the wind. Dean pulls out his EMF detector and starts in the dining room, moves to the kitchen, scans the living room, gets a couple unalarming blips while heading up the stairs, and stops in the bathroom – the last place he knows for sure the spirit showed up when it sweet-talked Tom Brennan into slitting his wrists – and the detector red-lines. 

It’s nothing Dean hadn’t expected, but it still makes a chill run down his spine. He scans the bathroom with his flashlight, but nothing’s there, so he walks back to the top of the stairs. 

The chill doesn’t leave. He’s trembling with cold, maybe just a residual effect of wearing a damp shirt around, but then he exhales white breath, and his flashlight flickers out. 

_Dammit._ He blinks in an effort to adjust his eyes quicker to the sudden, impenetrable darkness. He says to the empty hallway, “Alright, show yourself.” 

_Godfuckingdammit._ And, at the same time, Dean wonders what exactly he expected to find. 

“I didn’t mean to.” 

The voice behind him makes Dean spin on his heel, heart leaping into his throat. There’s a girl standing in the hallway behind him, eerie and white, noose around her neck. He recognizes her young face from the picture in the obituary columns. She’s wearing a plaid skirt and a button-up shirt. Her hair is in braids. 

“It can’t be you,” Dean says stupidly to Lily Dodds, whose father didn’t claim her body, so she was cremated by the state. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt them,” she says, blinking large eyes. She looks so young. So frightened. So sad. “I’m sorry.” 

“Did he kill you?” Dean asks. He moves carefully, so he won’t frighten her away. She doesn’t seem like she wants to attack him, but Dean doesn’t let that fool him; he knows that’s what ghosts do, and he needs to keep her talking long enough to figure out where her remains are before she goes apeshit. 

Lily’s eyes feel like they’re boring through Dean’s chest. “No,” she answers, voice barely above a whisper. “And yes.” 

“What does that mean?” Dean’s heart beats so hard against his ribs it hurts. He crouches to the ground, fumbles inside his bag for a crowbar. 

“I was just so alone,” she replies. “I just didn’t want to be alone anymore.” 

Dean gulps. It’s hard to breathe. He doesn’t know if it’s because she’s doing something to him or if it’s just because the word _alone_ fills his chest with cold, dry air that withers his lungs. 

“The others,” Lily says, “they didn’t want to be alone, either. You don’t want to be alone. I can feel it. You don’t have to be alone. Please, let me help you.” 

Dean stands back to his feet, gripping a crowbar, but he looks down and he’s not holding a crowbar. He’s holding his shotgun. 

“No,” he says, barely able to move his lips. He’s not sure if he’s talking to Lily or to the firearm in his hand. 

“Come with me.” Lily takes a step toward Dean, hand outstretched. “Please. I don’t want to be alone.” 

“S-stay away from me,” Dean says. He hates the tremor in his voice. He tries to take a step back, but he can’t move. 

Lily wraps her icy fingers around Dean’s hand, the one holding the sawed-off. It’s like he’s plunged his arm into a frozen lake. 

“Please,” she whispers, and guides his arm upward. _Four five six seven eight._ Dean’s been here before; it’s not that he can’t move. He doesn’t want to. “Don’t make me be alone anymore.” 

Dad’s going to be so disappointed: Dean taken out on a milk run. And Sammy. Sammy’s going to be – if Sammy ever finds out – 

“Wait –” Dean jerks his arm away from Lily’s hand. It feels like scraping his flesh against sharp ice. Panic kicks his mind back awake. Adrenaline makes him breathe again. He drops to the floor, grabs for the crowbar, comes up swinging.

“No,” Lily wails. “Please!” His crowbar passes through her chest. She shatters with a scream. Dean chokes for breath in the suddenly silent hallway. 

He has about two seconds before a freight train slams into his chest. He’s standing at the top of the stairs. The ground disappears from beneath his feet, and he tumbles backward. 

The world stops moving. Dean knows the impact’s coming, so he shuts his eyes. 

The back of his head hits first, a sickening crack that jerks his chin forward like it’s on the neck of a bobblehead. Then his shoulders and lower back slam to the ground. He snaps his right elbow hard against the railing; tingling numbness radiates up his arm as he hits a nerve. He skids to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, legs sprawled up the steps, so all the blood rushes to his head. 

He blinks against the popping lights in his vision. His breath explodes from his lungs, and with it comes the sudden clarity of pain: throbbing in his back and shoulders, the tell-tale pounding in his head that warns of a concussion. He rolls over, tries to lever himself up with his right arm, but his elbow trembles under his weight. 

He struggles to his feet, biting his lip against a groan, and braces against the wall to help keep himself upward. It’s the wall with all the pictures. Tom and Olivia Brennan smile at him from a dozen different frames, blissful and oblivious. 

How long did he know? Dean wonders. How long did Tom Brennan smile while he knew he was going to slice his wrists in a bathtub, drift away in the hot water and into the cold embrace of a thirteen-year-old girl?

Dean turns to the front door across the dining room. His vision slides and blurs, stomach cramps against rising nausea. 

Lily rematerializes across the room. There are tears in her large eyes. She looks so scared, and suddenly all Dean can see is Sammy: Sammy when he tried not to cry when he saw a dead body for the first time, Sammy when Dean dropped him off for his first day of kindergarten and his little brother didn’t want to let go of his hand, Sammy when he left for Stanford and paused at the doorway to catch Dean’s eye, desperate, wild, angry, pleading _come with me. Please._

“I’m sorry!” Lily shrieks. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” She flings the dining room table across the floor. Dean’s too slow to dive out of the way – with his pounding head and aching body, the three beers he chugged before he showed up. 

The sharp corner of the table slams into Dean’s chest. Something cracks under the point of impact. Dean’s body jerks against the wall. His head crashes against one of the pictures. He hears shattering glass. Dean doubles over, slumping half-way onto the table. 

He waits for Dad to show up. Because this is the part where Dad shows up, here to help Dean clean up the mess he’s made. 

Dad’s gone. Gone gone gone fucking gone everyone’s gone. 

“No,” Dean grunts. He pushes against the table, body screaming in protest, but manages to budge it enough for him to move away from the wall. 

“Please,” Lily sobs. “Don’t make me hurt you. Please. I just don’t want to be alone anymore.” 

Dean’s crowbar tumbled down the stairs with him. He gropes for it on the floor, fingers close around the cold iron, and he pushes himself upward using the lip of the table. 

Lily’s standing right in front of him. She’s so small. She barely comes up to his forearms. She reaches for his chest, dead fingers brush his skin through his shirt. 

“Please,” she begs, and her voice turns to another scream as Dean clumsily swings the crowbar through her face. She splinters again. 

First order of business: get the hell out. Dean throws himself toward the front door. He can’t keep his feet under him and twin points of pain rattle up his legs when his kneecaps hit the ground. His chest erupts into fiery pain and Dean chokes down a gasp. He crawls, hoists himself upward on the doorknob, and stumbles into the frozen air. 

It’s snowing, he realizes numbly as he falls down the short flight of porch stairs and ends up with a face full of wet grass. Wet snowflakes drop heavily from the dark sky, melting as soon as they hit ground. 

He doesn’t let himself stay down, because something’s shouting in his head that it’s a really fucking bad idea if he stays down right now. Dean braces himself on his left arm, gritting his teeth as the movement pulls at something in his chest. He cranes his head over his shoulder to make sure Lily can’t follow him outside. She watches him sadly from the open front door, fenced in by the place where she killed herself. 

“I’m – sorry –” Dean struggles to say, not sure what he’s sorry for. His stomach heaves and he vomits warm beer and his coldcut sandwich onto the grass. The retching jars something in his chest. He can feel bones grinding, and he groans, curls desperately inward on himself, wraps his arms around his chest and draws his knees toward his body. 

He needs to get into the car. Dimly Dean knows this. Get to the car. Just get to the damn car. Then he can figure out where Lily’s remains are. He can burn her remains and then she doesn’t have to be alone anymore. 

Dean makes himself move, makes himself get back onto his knees. The change in altitude spins the world sharply sideways and he tips toward the ground again. He catches himself on his bad arm, and his elbow buckles. He struggles upward again, holds his right elbow tight against his ribs. He staggers down the slippery lawn. He rams his shoulder against the Impala when he finally gets there, is seeing two keyholes by the time he tugs his keys out of his pocket, squints in concentration and finally manages to get the door open. 

He tips inside, drags his feet in after him, and falls weakly against the seatback. He’s on the passenger side, he realizes. It takes half a second to blink at the empty driver’s seat for him to remember that it’s his car now. 

_Oh._

There’s no one else there. Running away from Lily doesn’t make Dean any less alone. 

Dean manages to make his right arm work long enough to shut the door behind him, closing out the bitter wind and snow. It’s too late; Dean’s shuddering. The cold’s seeped into his bones, like Lily submerged his entire body into that frozen lake of hers. He needs to warm up. He should grab his blanket from the backseat. He needs to get out of here, check into some hotel for the night, or maybe just sleep in the Impala again, maybe spend another night in a Walmart parking lot, maybe lay down right here, let the darkness come. 

It’s easier that way.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean wakes up with blood in his throat. Before he’s even fully aware he’s awake, he’s wrenching his head and spewing blood and bile onto the floorboard. He tries to turn onto his side so he doesn’t choke, but that’s a bad idea – because as soon as he attempts to shift, a sickening pain rockets through his left side, radiating all the way up to his shoulder and down his back. He screams, or tries to. Instead the sound just gurgles up his throat and something hot trickles down his chin. 

The pain coils through his body. He convulses and throws up again, half on the floor and half on himself. The sharp, tangy stench of vomit and blood fill the cabin, flooding Dean’s mouth and nose. 

He weakly attempts to cough to clear his throat, but the movement digs into his ribs again. Dean’s throat hitches on a sob. There’s a dizzying pinwheel of colors and lights floating across his vision. His head hurts, too. At first, he was too preoccupied with his chest, but now he can feel the back of his head throbbing in time to the heartbeat hammering against his ribs. He clumsily manages to lift his left arm to touch the back of his head. He struggles to focus on his fingers and he sees blood stuck under his fingernails. _Glass,_ he realizes dimly. 

His body is shaking so violently he’s not entirely sure he’s not seizing. Cold doesn’t begin to describe it: he’s numb. He can’t feel his arms or feet anymore. 

Something vibrates against his upper thigh. For a second Dean thinks it’s just his body shivering, but then recognition slips into his mind and he realizes it’s his cellphone in his pocket. 

Dean’s left hand doesn’t feel like it’s actually touching anything by the time his fingers struggle into his pocket and pull out his phone. Working the phone one-handed is difficult. Dean finally flips it open before he realizes that it’s stopped ringing. 

He has five missed calls from the same number. He recognizes the caller but he’s not sure who it is. Maybe it’s Sammy. 

‘Bout time the kid called home.

_Just shut up. Just shut up both of you for one Goddamn minute._ Dean stumbles between both of them, his red-faced father and impossibly angry brother. Dean’s panting hard, hands outstretched like he could just grab hold of their shirtfronts and hang on tight enough to keep his family from splintering. 

Somehow Sammy’s standing by the door. And that’s on Dean. Dean shouldn’t have let his brother get so close to the damn door. 

_It’s just fucking college!_ Sam roars, tears of rage burning in his eyes, and Dean doesn’t know who Sammy’s trying to convince: Dad, Dean, or himself. 

_You’re ruining our lives, you bastard, you’re turning me into a prisoner and Dean into some kind of fucking wind-up toy!_

_If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back,_ and for one horrible minute Dean thought Dad was talking to _him_. 

Dean’s phone is ringing again. Maybe it’s Sammy calling to tell Dean he’s finally leaving school. He’s coming back. He presses the answer call button and brings the phone to his ear. 

“S’mmy?” Dean murmurs. 

“Dean?” It’s not Sammy’s voice on the other end of the line. It’s Bobby, gruff and urgent. So loud it hurts Dean’s head. “Bout damn time! I’ve been trying you for hours.” 

“Bobby?” Dean says. He can’t feel whether or not his lips are moving. 

“You alright, son?”

“She’s just…” Dean’s tongue tumbles around the words. “S’just lonely, Bobby.” 

“Dean, where are you?” Bobby demands. “What the hell happened? You take care of the ghost?”

“M sorry,” Dean says, because he knows there’s something he should apologize for. Apologize for not helping Lily, for leaving her behind when she was so alone, for bailing on a hunt, for letting Sammy leave. 

“Put John on, Dean,” Bobby orders. “Put your daddy or Sam on for me.” 

Bobby’s voice makes Dean’s throat close up again. He forces himself to talk passed ache of tears. “Not here, Bobby.” 

“Listen to me, Dean,” Bobby yells. Why is he yelling? “Where are you? You need to tell me where you are. I’m twenty minutes out from Rapid City. I can come get you, but you need to tell me where you are.” 

“House, Bobby,” Dean explains faintly. “Lily’s house. She’s just alone.” 

“_Fuck,_ Dean,” Bobby shouts. “You still at the damn house? How bad are you hurt? You need an ambulance?”

“No.” Dean needs to sleep. He’s stopped shaking now. He thinks he remembers Dad telling him that was a bad sign, to stop shivering when he’s still so cold. 

“Keep talking to me, Dean,” Bobby says, like he somehow knows how badly Dean just wants to sleep. Just wants to go away. “I want you to stay awake for me, can you do that?” 

But Dean can’t do anything, doesn’t Bobby know that by now? Screws up a damn salt and burn. Can’t help Lily. Can’t stop Dad from leaving. Can’t make Sammy want to stay. Can’t make Sammy want to call. Can’t protect Sammy, and that’s the only thing Dean needs to be able to do. His one job, and he screwed it up. He can’t. 

“Can’t,” Dean mumbles into his phone. “M sorry, S’mmy.” 

“Dean, _dammit_ –” Bobby’s voice yells distantly as Dean again drifts into darkness. 

OOO

“Alright, kid,” says a voice, “let’s get you vertical.” Then there are hands on Dean’s shoulders, pulling upward, and Dean’s chest rips open from the pain, splintering back up his shoulder. His jaw drops and he tries to scream, but all that comes out is a choked moan. 

“Open your eyes for me, Dean,” the voice continues and props Dean up against the seat. The car is running. Dean can feel the motor vibrate through the leather. And the heat is on: a steady stream of warm air hits Dean in the face. His breathing comes up his throat in short, sharp wheezes. 

Now the hands are on Dean’s face, thumbing up an eyelid and shining a friggen laser into Dean’s retinas. 

“Mmmh…no,” Dean hums weakly in protest and his head jolts in response to the intrusion. He shuts his eyes tight. 

“That wasn’t a request,” the voice growls. _Dad?_ But that can’t be right. Dad left. Dad and Sammy and – “Eyes open. Now.” 

Dean lets out a trembling breath, as slowly as possible so it doesn’t hurt his chest. He drags his eyelids open, finds himself staring at Bobby’s furrowed eyebrows and patchy beard. Bobby’s eyes are fixed on Dean’s face. 

“Don’t make me ask you again,” Bobby says sternly, but his hand is gentle when he cups the side of Dean’s face, helping Dean hold his head steady as Bobby blinds both Dean’s eyes again with the damn flashlight. 

Dean’s eyes are watering by the time Bobby’s finished and lowers the light, revealing his surly face again, and Dean can see the concern in Bobby’s eyes. 

“How many fingers ‘my holding up, Dean?” 

Dean squints at the pale blur of Bobby’s hand. “I dunno…three?” he rasps. 

“What’s your name?”

“Dean.” 

“Full name, kiddo,” Bobby taps Dean’s cheek and Dean’s eyes open again. He hadn’t realized he’d closed them. 

“W’nchester,” it comes out on a gasp as Dean accidentally sucks in a breath too quickly and agony splits through his chest. 

“What day is it?” 

“Tuesday,” Dean mumbles. Sammy left on a Tuesday. Dean hates Tuesdays. Everything bad always happens on Tuesdays.

“Guess again,” Bobby grinds through his teeth. “Dammit, kid. I ask you if you need an ambulance and you need an ambulance? You sure as hell better tell me you need an ambulance!” 

“M sorry, Bobby,” Dean chokes. 

And maybe Bobby was expecting more fight, because his palm lands on Dean’s left arm and his eyes soften. “Where else you hurting?” 

“Mmn, no, Bobby,” Dean moans. Dean doesn’t want to tell him. Doesn’t want to say because Bobby’s hands are poised over Dean’s body, ready to start digging, and Dean knows it’s going to hurt. 

“Man up, Winchester,” Bobby snaps. 

It makes Dean’s breath stall in his throat, because it’s a direct order. And Dean obeys direct orders. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, barely able to make his voice rise up his throat. 

“Just let me help you, Dean.” Lily wanted to help. Lily just didn’t want to be alone anymore. 

“Chest,” Dean says. As soon as he says it, his broken ribs pulse with hot, nauseating pain and he screws up his eyes against it. Bobby doesn’t yell at him to open them again, though. 

“Okay,” says Bobby. “You’re soaked through, son.” His hands don’t immediately go to Dean’s chest. Instead, he tugs Dean’s flannel shirt away from his shoulders, carefully works it down Dean’s arms, pauses when Dean winces as the fabric tugs against his right elbow. 

“And arm?” Bobby asks. 

“Yeah,” Dean says tightly, because there’s no use denying it. 

“Anywhere else? I’m serious, now.” 

Dean can’t speak anymore. He’s so tired. He shakes his head, or at least he thinks so if the resulting wave of dizziness is anything to go by. 

“Eyes open,” Bobby warns and snaps his fingers in front of Dean’s face. “Come on. I need you to stay awake for me.” 

Dean barely manages it. He peers at Bobby blearily from under his lashes. 

“I knew something was wrong when you didn’t text me back earlier,” Bobby rattles on as he tugs Dean’s sodden shirt out from behind him. “It’s like John to ignore me, but not like you or your brother. I tried Sam, but his phone’s disconnected.” 

“What?” It makes Dean’s eyes fly open all the way, makes a cold hand of panic close around his heart. He tries to sit up. Bobby’s there immediately to stop him from moving. 

“Easy, Dean, dammit,” Bobby growls. 

“Bobby, he –” 

“You’re going to make it worse if you don’t calm down.”

And Bobby’s right. The pain is already ratcheting up, filling Dean’s head with a sharp, shrill keen. Dean gags on a breath that turns into a dry sob. Bobby’s hand finds Dean’s shoulder and squeezes, warm and comforting, grounding Dean through the pain. 

“Let me get this out of the way,” Bobby says after Dean regains control of his breathing. He reaches for the amulet hanging against Dean’s chest and Dean squirms, trying to tell him no but his throat doesn’t work. “Don’t worry, Dean. I’ll keep it safe for you.” 

Dean allows Bobby to lift the chord from around his neck, even though he immediately feels wrong as soon as it’s gone, somehow disoriented, untethered without its familiar weight. 

“I’m gonna check out your chest, now, Dean,” Bobby says after he tucks the amulet into his pocket. “I ain’t gonna give you any shit about it not hurting. It’s gonna hurt plenty. But I’ve gotta know what we’re working with. From the sound of that wheezing and the blood you’ve obviously coughed up, you’ve got a rib displaced. So, try to stay with me, now.” 

Dean’s shivering again, but he can’t tell anymore if it’s because he’s still cold. He curls his left hand into a fist; he tries to do the same with his right, but it hurts too much. He’s scared, he realizes, and dammit, because he can’t let Bobby know he’s scared. 

Bobby lifts the edge of Dean’s t-shirt, rolls it up to bare his chest. Bobby’s face darkens at what he sees there. 

“Where’s John, Dean?” Bobby asks as his fingers find Dean’s skin. Bobby’s palms are rough with callouses, but his hands are gentle as they prod Dean’s chest. Dean knows Bobby’s trying to distract him from the pain, trying to keep him awake and talking. 

“Minna – Minnesota,” Dean stumbles over the word as Bobby presses more firmly against his ribs, and a white-hot flash of hurt erupts at the point of contact. Dean closes his eyes, grits his teeth to ride it out. 

“On a hunt, Dean?” Bobby doesn’t quit his probing, digs deeper. “Dean – on a hunt?” One of Bobby’s hands grips Dean’s chin, turns his face so he has to look at Bobby, and Dean draws his eyes open because it’s what he’s supposed to do; he’s not supposed to make Bobby ask again. 

“Dunno…I dunno….”

“He meet up with Jim Murphy?”

Dean’s chest throbs. He tries to swallow, can’t work up enough spit, so he runs his tongue over his lips. “Didn’t…didn’t tell me. Just left. On a – on a lead I – _mmmh._” 

Dean jerks and can’t stop the high wine of pain from scraping up his throat as Bobby finds the worst of it on his left ribs, finds the spot and digs a fucking knife into it. The pain rips through his body and closes his throat against a gasp. His head falls heavily against the seatback. He stares at the Impala’s ceiling, blinking hot, stinging tears. 

“And Sam?” says Bobby. Of course, Dean had forgotten that the entire world didn’t hear the door slam after Sammy walked out. 

It takes Dean a minute to work his throat against the pain and rising bile. “S-Stanford,” he finally stammers. 

Bobby nods curtly. “Good for him.” 

It feels like a betrayal, like Bobby’s the one that shoved Dean down the stairs and threw a table at him. Bobby keeps kneading at Dean’s chest, working at it like he’s trying to tear Dean’s ribs out. Dean gulps air in short, breathy gasps. 

“B-Bobby stop,” Dean whispers. Sweat beads on at his hairline. He can’t help himself. He’s done. He hates himself for how weak he is, but he’s done now. “P-please stop.” 

“So, you didn’t think of telling me you were coming out here alone?” Bobby continues. 

Dean doesn’t know what to say. Apparently, his silence pisses Bobby off. 

“You fucking suicidal, boy?” Bobby barks, and he’s not. Dean’s _not_. He put a sawed-off to the underside of his chin but he didn’t pull the trigger, so he’s not suicidal. He’s not. 

“Dean, what?” Bobby stops pawing at Dean’s chest. 

Dean’s heart drops into his stomach, because he didn’t mean to say that out loud. Dean’s sure he didn’t – 

“It’s…” Dean searches for an explanation, heartbeat rattling through his head. “Easier, Bobby…it’s –” 

Someone presses a palm across Dean’s mouth, pinches shut his nostrils, and, just like that, he can’t breathe. 

Can’t breathe. 

A sheet of panic rolls over his mind. He’s lightheaded. Can’t breathe. And at the same time, he knows that he really, really, fucking doesn’t want to breathe. 

“Relax, son, come on,” Bobby coaxes from somewhere far away. 

Dean’s shoulders jerk from the force of air exploding from his lips. His chest expands. More pain. Pure agony that makes his vision go white. He tries to curl inward, knees to chest. He would have smashed his face right into the dashboard if Bobby’s fist hadn’t found his shoulder and force him back against the seat, keeping him upright. 

Dean’s coughing dislodges something hot and metallic from his throat. Each cough digs the knife in his ribs further in, twists the blade in his chest, racks his body helplessly against the seatback.   
His left hand grapples for purchase on the slippery seat next to him, desperate for something to hold onto as the pain ripples through his chest. Bobby’s calloused fingers wrap firmly around Dean’s hand and grip hard enough to hurt. Dean zeros in on those two points of steady human contact: Bobby’s hand on his shoulder, pressing him hard against the seat, and Bobby’s hand around Dean’s. 

The coughing eventually peters out, turns to helpless gasping that continues to tear through his chest, but doesn’t throw him into convulsions. Dean goes limp, exhausted, and his head lolls to the side, comes to a rest with his forehead pressed to the cool window. Bobby eases his hand from Dean’s and releases Dean’s shoulder. 

“Alright, Dean,” Bobby says, gruff voice kind and tight with worry. “You’re alright.” 

Bobby shifts in the seat and digs for something on the door. He returns with a fistful of brown takeout napkins. He wipes Dean’s mouth, and what Dean took for drool on his chin comes away red. His whole face is wet. Warm tears trickle slowly down his cheeks. 

Now that he’s aware he’s crying, Dean can’t stop. He tries to lift his arm to wipe his face, but the muscles tremble and he can’t muster enough strength to move. His breath catches wetly in his throat. His stupid bottom lip wobbles. 

He’s not supposed to cry because it’ll scare Sammy. He can’t cry because he needs to be brave for his little brother. But Dean’s not brave. He’s cold and he hurts – _oh my God,_ he hurts – and Sammy’s not there. And Dad’s not there. Only Bobby’s there, and maybe Bobby won’t mind too much if Dean cries. 

“Easy,” says Bobby. “Easy, son. I’ve got you, Dean. You’re gonna be alright.” 

Crying just makes it worse. His chest constricts painfully and Dean can’t help it, he whimpers, and then he hates himself. 

Bobby doesn’t say _you pathetic shit,_ but Dean doesn’t want to see it in the older man’s face so he shuts his eyes even though Bobby might yell at him to keep them open again, bites down on his lip hard enough to taste blood in his mouth. 

Bobby shifts again, kneels on the seat and reaches into the back. He comes up with the ratty wool blanket Dean’d thought about grabbing before, back when he might have been lucid enough to get it by himself but hadn’t been able to care enough to try. Bobby spreads the blanket over Dean’s shaking shoulders, makes sure its tucked tight enough that it won’t fall, then turns to the steering wheel. 

“You’re pretty shocky. Gonna get you to a hospital, kid,” he says. He turns the keys in the ignition and the Impala roars to life. “Hang tight.” 

OOO

It’s the pain, again, that ultimately punches Dean back through to consciousness when a couple of medical aids try to ease him out of the car and onto a gurney, hoisting him under his arms and making Dean’s ribs crackle with agony. Dean doesn’t have the strength to yell, so he just moans low and pathetically, and he can’t stop the sound from spilling up his throat. 

“Be careful, ya idjits,” Bobby barks, and he’s there with a hand on Dean’s shoulder again. “Breathe through it. They’ll get you some good stuff soon.” 

“We’ll take him from here, sir,” one of the aids says. 

“Like hell you will,” Bobby growls. The gurney starts rolling. Dean hears the whoosh of automatic doors and they’re immersed by stale hospital air and the chalky smell of antiseptic. 

“What are we looking at?” sharp footsteps on linoleum floor and a woman’s face swims into view above Dean’s head. She’s wearing a white coat and blue gloves. 

“Hit by a car,” Bobby lies easily. “He’s got a couple broken ribs on his left side. Coughing up blood, so he might’ve punctured a lung. Concussion. He was by himself for upwards of two hours. Hypothermic and in shock. He needs fluids.”

“Ah, thank you,” the doctor looks at Bobby in surprise. “We’ll get him an IV and some x-rays. Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your –”

“Nephew,” Bobby finishes for her. “Dean.” 

“We’ll patch you up just fine, Dean,” the woman turns her attention to Dean and smiles kindly. She lifts up his shirt, presses her palms to the mess of bruised and swollen skin on Dean’s chest. Dean bucks under her touch and coughs up a strangled yelp of pain. 

“And get him some damn morphine!” Bobby shouts. 

The woman talks over Bobby to someone standing outside of Dean’s field of vision. “Call ahead to radiology. Likely pneumothorax. We need to get a chest tube into him, first. Get him on some oxygen.” 

Someone grabs Dean’s hand. Dean tries to tug away. There are too many people. Too many noises. His chest continues to burn. 

“Easy there, tiger,” the nurse at his side says, and slips an IV catheter into the back of his hand. Someone else bends over his face and fixes an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He tries to fight him off but his arms are weighted to his sides. 

The gurney rattles into motion again. Bobby isn’t there anymore. Bobby left, too. And Dean shouldn’t feel disappointed, because he’s not stupid. Everyone leaves. Dean should know that by now. 

“B-Bobby,” he still murmurs, just to make sure, but the sound is lost in his oxygen mask, and Bobby doesn’t hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone’s interested, John’s in Minnesota visiting Adam and his mother for the first time, because according to the show, Adam met John when he was twelve, which would have put that around the same time Sam left for Stanford, and that math just made me sad, because it meant that soon after Dean lost Sam to school, he also lost his dad to another family.


	4. Chapter 4

The gurney rattles down the hall. Footsteps clatter around him. 

“Wait,” Dean gags. “P-please.” But the doctor and nurse rolling him through the hallway don’t look at him. Dean’s chest clenches. There’s a hot, bubbling feeling in his stomach that he recognizes as fear. 

“Respiratory distress,” someone says sharply. 

“You gotta calm down, hon,” says someone else. And they’re all strangers. So many people Dean doesn’t know, and they’re all touching him. He wants them to stop touching him. 

“Let’s get him on the bed. One. Two. Three. Lift.” The sheet under him pulls taught and his head spins as he’s transferred from the gurney to another surface. Someone mentioned a bed, but it’s too hard to be a bed. 

The lights are too bright here. It hurts his eyes. Makes his head ache. His ears fills with humming fear, and he doesn’t want to be here anymore. He wants to pass out, but the rush of activity and thudding fear is making Dean more aware, not less. 

“Your name’s Dean, right, man?” Dean’s eyes can’t focus on the man’s face hovering above him. He’s just a dark blur: pink moving mouth and black shadows where his eyes are supposed to be. He doesn’t wait for a response. “My name’s Luke, okay? I’m a PA. Listen, the doctor’s going to have to insert a chest tube. We’re going to give you a local anesthetic. That will help with the pain. But we can’t give you anything stronger yet until we get your breathing under control, okay?”

“Wait –” Dean tries again, clumsy lips barely able to form the word. And they can’t hear him with the mask over his face, so Dean tries to lift his arm to take it off. A hand closes around his wrist and pulls it back down to his side. Dean’s body tenses, because no one fucking grabs him – a hand finds his forehead and stops him from moving his head. 

“Easy. Easy, tiger,” the nurse says soothingly. 

“Dean, man,” the PA – Luke. Dean snatches onto the name like a life raft – says steadily, “we don’t want to use restraints, so you need to calm down for us, bud. I know you’re in pain and you’re scared. But we’re going to help you. Can you try to breathe with me?” 

Luke starts counting, _one two three four_, and Dean’s throat struggles to respond. _One to three four one two three four one two three four and Dean’s alone in a Walmart parking lot and Sammy’s gone gone gone and won’t know if Dean – _

The nurse is a flurry of movement above Dean as Luke keeps counting breaths. She clasps an oxygen monitor to Dean’s finger. She fastens a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm and inflates it tightly. She rattles something off to Luke about his vitals. 

Luke bends over Dean’s face, holding a small flashlight. “Keep those eyes open for me, alright?” 

Dean blinks through the assault of a flashlight in his eyes for the second time that night, clenching his jaw against the resulting lightning strike of pain inside his head. 

“I hope you’re not too fond of this shirt, sweetie,” the nurse says moving again. Dean feels the cool edge of sheers glide down the center of his chest, cutting away the fabric. Dean goes rigid from being so close to a blade, tries to remember to keep breathing, frantically thinks _going to help trying to help him aren’t going to hurt him_. She sticks a couple heart-monitor tabs to his chest. The steady beeping of his heartbeat fills the air. 

“Attaboy, Dean,” says Luke. His voice is young. Luke’s probably only a few years older than Dean. Except Dean’s on the table after being pulverized by a thirteen-year-old ghost and Luke’s well on his way up a respectable career path. “The doc’ll be here in a second. I’m going to talk you through the process, sound good? First, I’m gonna sterilize your chest. It won’t hurt, I promise.” 

Something wet and cool wipes across Dean’s skin. Dean focuses on the sensation, letting the cold seep into the painful heat radiating off his ribs, focuses on pulling in breaths of clean oxygen, focuses on how much he wants Dad to be there. 

The need for his father is desperate and uncontrollable; Dean’s skin prickles with it. 

Dean’s been to hospitals a handful of times, when it gets really bad. He’s fourteen when he comes down with the flu. Sammy and he are alone in an apartment for a month; Dad’s away on a hunt. Dean pukes his guts out until he passes out from dehydration. The next thing he knows, he’s got his head in Sammy’s lap in the back of the Impala and Dad’s driving through red lights on the way to the ER. The first and only time Dean can remember Dad dropping everything in the middle of a hunt. 

Dad stays with him the whole time in the hospital, talking slow and quiet, hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dad’s always there, every time. Sure, he must leave at some point to go to the bathroom or a cup of coffee, but by then Dean was unconscious or too out of it with meds. And Dean can’t remember ever being this aware, in this much pain, surrounded by this many people, without Dad there. 

“You’re doing really well.” Luke’s talking to Dean like he’s a toddler, and part of Dean wants to tell him to shut the fuck up, but part of Dean wants to melt into Luke’s voice, let himself drift away on it, go somewhere in his mind where he can pretend it’s Dad. _You’re doing really well, Deano. It won’t hurt, son, I promise. _

“Just keep breathing nice and steady,” Luka keeps talking, calm and clear. “I’m going to give you the local now, okay? It’ll pinch a little.”

“Want me to hold your hand, tiger?” the nurse says, her eyes sparkle, and even though Dean really doesn’t want a stranger to hold his hand, her fingers close around his fist, and Dean tries not to think about how glad he is that she’s holding his hand anyway. He just wants her to stay there a minute. Just a minute. He wants things to slow down. 

There are five sharp pricks of a needle on Dean’s chest as Luke pumps him full of local anesthetic. Numbness spreads across his skin, but a steady throb of pain keeps resonating from deeper in his chest. 

A door opens. “We got an ultrasound ready?” another voice says, and Dean recognizes it as the doctor from before. 

“All set,” says Luke. 

“Concussion?”

“Yes, but his pupils are even.”

“Alright, let’s go,” the doctor says. 

Dean’s throat closes up. His vision fades dark at the edges. The beeping of the heart-monitor speeds up. 

“Calm down, man. Calm down,” Luke says easily. “I’m gonna ultrasound your chest, now. Give Dr. Andersen an idea of where to put the tube in. You’ll barely feel it with the local, but it might still be a little cold.” 

The ultrasound gel is cold, but Dean notices it only abstractly through the strange numbness in his skin. He feels a soft pressure as the wand skates across his chest. 

Dr. Andersen bends over to look at the image on the screen, Luke joins her, both talking low. The nurse blocks Dean’s view, smiling as she wipes the gel off. 

“How old are you, sweetie?” she asks. Dean knows she doesn’t expect him to actually make conversation. She’s just trying to distract him, keep him calm, stop him from leaping off the damn table and sprinting out the doors. “You in school?” 

Sammy’s in school. Sammy left to go to school. Sammy left. Sammy – 

Dr. Andersen and Luke are busy with the surgical instruments, now. Dean hears the clatter of metal. Light glints off the scalpel and Dean can’t help but look, realization buzzing in the back of his head that he’s about to be cut into, and he’s not supposed to fight back, because they’re trying to help _trying to help trying to help ¬– _

“Hey, sweetie,” the nurse moves to block his view. She smiles at him kindly, eyes crinkling, “You wanna look at me, instead?” 

But Dean shakes his head furiously, room spinning and head throbbing horribly at the motion. He wants to see it – has to see it – isn’t going to let them cut into him without watching every move. 

Dr. Andersen approaches with the scalpel, Luke standing by with a piece of gauze. 

Dean can’t feel the incision because of the anesthesia, but he sees the blood and flinches hard. In a hard-won instinct to respond when someone’s knifing him, Dean lifts his hand to bat the scalpel away. 

“Whoa, now,” the nurse is there immediately, gripping his hand hard. “I got you.” 

“Alright,” Dr. Andersen lifts her head and nods to someone outside of Dean’s line of sight, which makes Dean’s stomach clench, because he thought it had just been three of them. He’d had eyes on three. There were only supposed to be three. Just three. “Hold him.” 

“It’s alright, hon,” the nurse smiles, pumping his hand. Soft and warm and there. “I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”

Dean can’t. Hard hands grip his shoulders. Dean can’t. An aid slides into view at the end of the table and grasps Dean’s ankles. Dean can’t. He fucking can’t. He squeezes his eyes shut like he’s four and he’s scared of the monster in his closet, the one that came out and burned up Mom. 

Then the tube slides into the incision, presses into his chest, and tunnels through a space between his ribs. Dean gags on the pain, goes lightheaded with it. Dean’s eighteen when a wraith jabs its spike toward his head, but he dodges and it lands in his shoulder. He twists and there’s a sickening snap, and the wraith howls in agony. It closes its other hand around the stub in its wrist where the spike used to be. Instead, the spike is embedded in Dean’s shoulder. 

“Hey,” the nurse nudges Dean’s shoulder softly. “Hey, you did just fine, tiger.” She lifts a cloth to his forehead, wipes away the sheen of sweat that’s gathered there. Then she dabs at his eyes, which are leaking tears. “Just fine, sweetie.” 

Luke straps the tube down with medical tape. Both he and Dr. Andersen snap their gloves off and toss them into a waiting trashcan. Luke grins at Dean and gives him a thumbs up. “You good, man?” 

Dr. Andersen says to the nurse, “Alright, get him up to radiology. I need chest x-rays and an MRI. Monitor his breathing. Get him started on ten milligrams of oxycodone.”

The nurse fiddles with something in his IV. Something zips through the line into the catheter in his hand. His head feels heavy. A gray haze bleeds across Dean’s vision.

Dimly, Dean hears another one, two, three count and he’s lifted from the table back to the gurney. Then it’s more rattling. He loses some time while he gets the scans done. At one point he’s aware of loud pinging in his ears; he’s encased in a metal tube, head immobile, but he can’t muster the appropriate amount of panic as a response for being in such an enclosed space; he’s too drowsy. 

Then there’s a whir of machinery, and Dean’s being angled into a sitting position in a hospital bed. His nurse is busy arranging pillows around him. “Sitting up’s gonna help you breathe easier, okay?”

She flits around the room, checking monitors and various tubes attached to Dean’s body. Somewhere along the line he’s lost his pants and boots, and he’s naked under a hospital gown. He’s still got the oxygen mask on. 

“You’re in the ICU for now. We gotta keep a close eye on that lung of yours, make sure it doesn’t collapse again.” 

She pulls a blanket up to Dean’s shoulders. He hadn’t realized he was trembling. 

“You still with me, tiger?” 

But Dean’s eyes slip shut, and he stops fighting it, just lets the drugs carry him away. 

OOO

Dean hates hospitals. He hates the endless beeping and buzzing of machinery, the tacky scent of antibacterial that coats every surface and hangs heavy in the air, the scratchy sheets, the hard-ass pillows, the constant stream of doctors and nurses there to ask if he’s comfortable, if he needs anything (I’m sorry, but whiskey isn’t an option right now, Mr. Smith, said with an amused grin), and asking him to rate his pain on a scale of one-to-ten. 

And Dean hates jello, the gross, jiggly, red blob they serve in little plastic cups instead of real food. But Dean isn’t allowed to have read food until he’s able to keep down whatever he tries to put into his mouth for more than five seconds, something he’s currently having difficulty doing. 

“It’s just the pain meds, tiger,” his nurse soothes him as he pukes up the red jello and flat ginger ale he’d been sipping in the futile attempt to settle his stomach. At least she’s pretty – in a ten-years-older, probably someone’s hot mom who does Pilates kinda way – but it’s not like Dean’s much of a charmer now, gagging over one of those stupid pink bedpans. 

Dean collapses back against the bed, head throbbing and chest protesting each breath. The nurse hands him a spare pillow with a sympathetic smile. “Hold it against your ribs, love. It’ll help.” 

“Fuck,” Dean says through his teeth, feeling dizzy and awakening another wave of nausea. Even though the nurse keeps telling him he’s on pain meds, it still seems like he can feel the jagged edge of his broken rib digging into his lung. 

“It’s the chest tube,” his nurse explains gently. “I know it’s uncomfortable.” 

It’s been about eleven hours since Bobby brought him in at one o’clock in the morning, and four hours since they rolled him out of the ICU, and about an hour since Dean’s been lucid – if he can even count it as lucid with oxycodone chugging through his veins and making his brain and body so sluggish. 

His right hand is bandaged from where Lily freezer-burned him with her creepy ghost hands, and his right elbow is braced so he can’t bend it, even though it’s just badly bruised. His vision is still blurry from his concussion, strangely slow like his eyes are hooked up to bad internet and keep lagging. There’s still an IV plugged into the back of his hand, an oxygen monitor splinting his finger, and he can feel two tubes under his hospital gown, one in his chest and the other between his legs, which he’s really trying not to think too hard about. He’s got an oxygen cannula under his nose to help his lungs function, because apparently getting stabbed by his own rib is something they don’t take kindly to. 

“I know it sucks,” his nurse lays a hand on his shoulder. He can feel the warmth of her hand seep through the flimsy hospital gown. And he hates fucking hospital gowns, all thin and airy and exposing, tied together with those stupid strings in the back. “But you need to try to breathe normally. You can give yourself pneumonia, otherwise.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Dean huffs and turns his head so he doesn’t have to look at her, guilt bubbling in his stomach because she really is only trying to help. 

Dean’s cracked ribs before. He knows the fucking drill. _Cough, Dean, dammit,_ Dad barks and slaps Dean’s back hard enough to rattle his teeth. A cough explodes from Dean’s throat and he digs his nails into Dad’s arm, leaving crescent moon-shaped imprints on his father’s skin as pain saws up his chest. He’s eighteen and fractured three ribs after getting bowled over by a rawhead. Sammy watches, wide-eyes from Dean’s other side, kneeling on the bed and using his own body to keep Dean sitting up. 

“It won’t be whatever when you’re hacking up that bad lung of yours,” the nurse says with a disapproving frown. Dean keeps looking at the wall. Maybe she gets the point that he’s not in a chatty mood, because her voice softens. “I’ll get you an incentive spirometer in a little while. You’re not gonna like it, but it’ll help in the long run. For now you just rest up, okay? Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.” 

Dean listens to her footsteps retreat. It’s stupid, but he can’t help it, “Ah –” he tries to call her back, but he doesn’t remember her name. “Nurse?” 

“Mmh-hmm?” She offers him a wry smile. 

“That – that old guy who brought me in,” Dean says it in a rush, afraid he’ll lose his nerve if he doesn’t say it fast enough. “He – ah – say anything about where he was going?” What Dean really wants to ask is, _he say anything about coming back?_ But he doesn’t want to assume Bobby’s coming back, because maybe he isn’t. 

“Your uncle?” the nurse asks. 

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. 

“I’m sorry,” she answers. “I haven’t heard anything. You want me to get your phone? It’s in the drawer with the rest of your stuff.” 

“No,” Dean says, looks at the wall again. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.” 

“Sure thing, sweetie,” she says, and leaves. 

OOO

Dean dozes fitfully in front of the television for another couple hours, pain meds making things like space and time unsettlingly hazy. His nurse comes back at some point with the spirometer and makes him blow into it, which feels like he’s breathing hot acid into his lungs. Then she tells him he’s supposed to do it again every hour, which is a real fucking treat, and he demands the paperwork so he can check himself out. 

She laughs in his face, which is really rude, and tells him he can feel free to check himself out as soon as he’s able to walk down the hall by himself, at which point her face blanches in alarm because she evidently didn’t expect Dean to actually try it. She presses him back into bed with very little effort, because Dean’s just inhaled a lungful of rusty nails. 

“You try to get out of that bed again, young man,” she rebukes him, “and I’ll use restraints. Don’t think I won’t.” 

“F-fuck you,” Dean sputters as soon as he’s able force the words up his spasming throat muscles. 

“Love to, honey,” she says, and winks, “but your ribs wouldn’t take it. Now, rate your pain for me. Scale of one-to-ten.” 

“Three,” Dean says, clenching his jaw to keep from wincing as pain flares through his ribs again because trying to get out of bed was a monstrously idiotic thing to do. 

The nurse levels her gaze at Dean. She doesn’t look impressed. “Cut the crap, Clark Kent. Six or seven?”

Dean glares at her, but she glares right back, and Dean’s too tired to let this be the hill he dies on, so he concedes with a roll of his eyes, “Five.” 

“Mmh-hmm,” she cocks an eyebrow, like she still doesn’t believe him. She steps up to his IV and fiddles with the dials. Dean finally gets a chance to nab a look at her nametag. It takes a second for his eyes to focus: Wendy. “I’m going to raise your oxycodone a little, okay? Should make things a little better. But you have to promise to let me know if you’re uncomfortable.” 

Dean rolls his eyes again. Wendy’s hand falls on his shoulder. “Dean, promise me,” she demands. 

“Fine.” 

She purses her lips at him. “You know, I’ve got an eight-year-old at home who acts a lot like this.” She lifts her hand away from his shoulder but hovers near his forehead. He pulls his head away from her. She frowns. “You feel a little warm. I’m gonna check your temp, okay?” 

Dean understands she’s there to help. She’s just doing her job. But Dean wants her gone now. Maybe he can’t leave the hospital yet, but the least they could do is leave him alone. 

“I’m fine,” he says on an exhale, too forcefully so it leaves another pang of hurt in its wake. 

Wendy returns to Dean’s bedside, brandishing a thermometer. The sparkle is entirely out of her eyes; Dean can tell she’s just as fed up with him as Dean is with her. “You know, this has two probes. One that’s oral and one that goes somewhere else. I’ll leave it to your imagination. And it’s up to you to decide which one I use. You catch my drift?” 

Dean swallows, throat dry, and eyes the threatening instrument uneasily. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, and meekly lets her slip a probe through his lips. It beeps after only a few seconds and she withdraws it, frowning at the reading.

“I’ll talk to Dr. Andersen,” she says, “get you started on some antibiotics.” 

Dean means to say something snarky to recover his dignity after the thermometer debacle, but he’s tired. He doesn’t give a fuck about antibiotics. He doesn’t give a fuck about checking himself out. With luck, maybe he’ll catch pneumonia; maybe it’ll do a better job of finishing the job than Dean could manage back in the Walmart parking lot. 

_Fuck._

He isn’t exactly sure where that thought came from. It’s just there suddenly, just like the aching knob that suddenly leaps into his throat. He blinks hard at the wall. Wendy is still there. Dean can feel her looking at him. 

He wants her to leave him alone, but instead she asks softly, “Your uncle isn’t back yet?” 

Dean clears his throat so he doesn’t sound like he’s about to start crying about antibiotics. “Nah.”

“You guys close?” 

Dean shrugs. “Close enough, I guess.” He tries not to think about tossing a baseball around in the park with Bobby when he was eight and supposed to be at the firing range, tight knot of anxiety at the thought of what Dad might say if he found out loosening in his chest every time Bobby pitched the ball softly enough so Dean could get his glove on it, his hands, by now so familiar with firearms and lockpicks, unpracticed when it came to hardballs. 

But close doesn’t mean shit. Dean and Dad had been close. And Sammy. Brothers were supposed to be the closest two people could ever be to one another, but that didn’t stop Sammy from leaving.

“Any other family who should know you’re here?” Wendy continues, eyes back to kind. “The hospital can make some calls if you don’t feel up to it.” 

“No,” Dean grits out, and clears his throat again because the knob is still stuck in his throat. And his eyes are stinging. And it’s the damn medication, or the concussion, that’s making him so weepy. “No. I’m fine. Thanks.” 

“Tell you what,” Wendy says gently, and points to his still-full cup of jello. “You finish that in the next hour and manage to keep it down, I’ll sneak you in some applesauce for dinner. Deal?”

Dean musters a smile for her, because he doesn’t want her to think she’s doing a poor job at cheering him up. It’s not her fault Dean just doesn’t care. “Yeah, sure.”

OOO

Bobby doesn’t show up, and Dean pretends he doesn’t check the clock on the wall every minute to watch the hands flick passed visiting hours. More than once he thinks about asking Wendy to get his phone so he can check for texts, but, like a coward, he doesn’t want to face the disappointment that’s waiting for him there when he sees his empty inbox, so he bites his tongue every time. 

Night turns out to be restless. It’s too loud, too bright, and too busy in the hall to sleep for more than handfuls of minutes, and then it’s too cold and too hot at the same time. Sometime during the night there’s a flurry of activity in the room and a bunch of strangers crowd around his bed. His hear races. He tries to fight them off, but someone calmly presses him back down into the mattress and fastens the oxygen mask back around his head. The cool rush of gas down his throat immediately makes it easier to breathe; Dean hadn’t realized it’d had gotten so hard. 

Then Sammy comes and sits beside Dean on the bed, like he did when Dean was eighteen after the rawhead, and Sammy pumps Dean’s hand in his own, concerned eyes latching onto Dean’s face. _Don’t worry, Dean, Dad’ll be back soon with more meds._

Then Sammy turns into Lily who pets Dean’s forehead with icy fingers. “Just let go,” she whispers. “You don’t have to be alone anymore. Come with me.” 

Dean blinks his eyes open. There’s an unfamiliar woman in a nurse’s uniform holding a cold compress to his forehead. It’s not Wendy, so it must still be the nightshift nurse. She shushes him with a smile. “Your fever spiked,” she says. “We’ve got you on a stronger antibiotic now. Don’t worry. Try to go back to sleep.” 

“I – I gotta help,” Dean tries to make her understand, but the nurse just keeps smiling, soothing him with a soft hand on his arm. “She’s…just lonely.” 

“Sure, hon,” the nurse says. “Shut your eyes. Try to sleep.” 

It’s not quite sleep he falls into next. The drugs and fever tug him through vague and disturbing dreams about Dad roaring away in his truck and Sammy slamming doors in Dean’s face and Bobby brandishing shotguns and telling Dean he’s suicidal. Tom and Olivia Brennan smile in front of a baseball stadium. Lily drifts through, whispering things Dean can’t quite understand into his ear, breath leaving icicles on Dean’s neck. 

He rises and falls through various stages of consciousness. At one point he wakes up, coughing violently, ribs aching, and soft hands help him sit up in bed. He thinks he sees blood on his sheets, but he isn’t sure if that’s real or not, because the nurses don’t seem alarmed. 

There’s something sticking in his chest, so he tries to tug it out, but hands stop him and someone says, “That needs to stay where it is, sport.” 

He feels shivery and empty, so they give him pre-warmed blankets, which help for a little while, until he’s sweating and aching, and there’s an itch in his eyes that warns him he’s about to cry again. He’s tired. So tired and he asks for Dad, because this is the part where Dad’s supposed to come back. Help Dean clean up his messes. 

And maybe the two of them can drive to California and get Sammy back. 

“It’s alright, Dean,” a familiar voice says, and a hand, rough with callouses, wipes Dean’s sweaty hair away from his forehead. “You’re going to be alright, son.”

Dean sags under the weight of the comforting hand and lets his eyes drift shut again. “Thanks, Bobby,” he whispers. Or tries to. By then he might be asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean Winchester v. Sassy Nurse is one of my favorite ever tropes in this fandom. I hope I did it justice. I’m also a sucker for Dean alone, confused, and hurting in a hospital because I’m…sadistic?


	5. Chapter 5

Bobby’s there when Dean wakes up. He’s slumped in the chair by Dean’s bed, eyes closed and breathing deeply. His hat sits haphazardly on his head, like he ran his hands through his sparse hair and forgot it was there. He looks beat: his clothes are mussed and there’s dirt under his fingernails. 

It would be kinder to let the man sleep, but the rush of relief Dean feels at seeing him makes a smile spread across his lips and he says, “You look like shit.” 

Bobby grunts, but doesn’t open his eyes, “You’re one to talk, kid.” 

Dean’s bundled in bed with about five layers of blankets snug up to his chin. He probably looks ridiculous, but he doesn’t feel any immediate urge to escape from them yet. He’s finally warm and his head feels clearer, which means either the fever’s out of his system or the pain meds have stopped screwing with him. 

Bobby shift in his chair, grumbling about aching muscles. Dean hides another grin by ducking into his blankets. 

“Heard you had quite a night,” Bobby says. His tone is light but Dean doesn’t miss the somber look in his eyes as he traces Dean up and down on the bed. 

“I – ah – don’t remember a lot,” says Dean, because there’s no point in talking about Sammy or Dad or Lily asking him to come with her. 

“Yeah, well,” Bobby says, “Doc says they’ve got the infection under control.”

“So that means we can get out of here?” says Dean. 

Bobby lifts his eyebrows. “So that means they’ve got the infection under control, kid,” he says dryly. “You gotta wait for that chest tube to stop draining blood before you can think about leaving.” 

“Awesome,” Dean says. He tries to cross his arms over his stomach, because he’s feeling petulant, but he stops when his right arm twinges in protest. He almost forgot about the fucking bone bruise. 

“Yeah, well consider it a lesson learned that you don’t go hunting alone without telling anyone,” Bobby retorts. 

Right, because Dean needs to be reminded about how incompetent he is. Like he doesn’t already understand how royally he fucked this up. Like if it had been Dad there instead of Dean than Bobby never would have had to get involved. Like Dean should have just taken Lily’s advice and – 

“Dean,” says Bobby, so damn softly it makes Dean want to scratch his skin off. 

“Where were you yesterday anyway?” Dean snaps, knowing he sounds like a sulky kid but not sure he cares, because it’s either that or start crying like Sammy would at this point. “Just gonna let me sit around and rot?” 

Bobby keeps his voice level. “I got your stuff back from the house. And then I tracked down that kid’s remains.” 

“She was fucking cremated, Bobby,” Dean says harshly. He wants to make Bobby yell at him. He wants Bobby to tell Dean how stupid he is, how he could have gotten himself killed, should have gotten himself killed and saved everyone a lot of trouble. “There weren’t any fucking remains.” 

Bobby doesn’t rise to the bait. For once in his life he seems capable of keeping his temper and Dean hates him for it. “It doesn’t have to be bones, Dean. She left behind a lock hair. From when she was a baby. Her father must’ve buried it with her mother.” 

“So, what?” Dean shoots back. “You’re allowed to go hunting by yourself but not me?” 

Bobby doesn’t answer right away. His eyes peer carefully into Dean’s face and Dean looks away, back to his favorite wall. Dean swallows back his anger, tasting acid. His ribs hurt again but he ignores it. 

“You knew I was coming back, right, Dean?” 

“The hell? Of course, Bobby,” Dean answers quickly, pumping his left hand in and out of a fist. 

“I did text you, Dean,” Bobby says gently. 

“Oh,” Dean answers, feeling foolish. It’s like it was with Wendy yesterday. Dean’s done, now. It’s like his mountain of blankets are suddenly bricks. Everything is too heavy. He doesn’t want Bobby here anymore. “Okay. Well. Awesome.” 

Bobby sighs, tired and slow. Dean can hear him run his hands through his hair. Something presses, hard and steady, against Dean’s chest that has nothing to do with his broken ribs. It’s just that his body’s decided breathing’s too much trouble. It would be so much easier if Dean could just shut his eyes, drift away. He won’t have to deal with this bullshit anymore, the hospital, and Dad, and Sammy, and Bobby. Dean doesn’t want to be here. Dean doesn’t want – and the need is so commanding, that Dean’s entire head fills with it. It clogs him up until he’s certain he’s heavy enough to sink through the bed to the floor, keep right on going, say hey to Lucifer on his way down. 

“I cleaned out your car,” Bobby says finally, tugging Dean back to the hospital room. Dean’s not sure if he’s being reprimanded, or not. 

It takes Dean a minute to remember he’s supposed to say something. “Thanks.” 

“Looks like you’ve been living kinda rough,” says Bobby, going for casual and failing. Dean’s stomach clenches, because he knows that Bobby doesn’t just mean cleaning out the puke and blood, but also the wrappers and empty bottles of booze. And it suddenly feels like Bobby’s peeled back Dean’s layers of blankets and hospital gown and is frowning at his naked body. 

“It’s cheaper than hopping from motel to motel,” Dean fumbles for some sort of excuse. But Bobby isn’t just talking about Dean’s sleeping arrangements. 

“You could’ve called me, Dean,” says Bobby. Dean isn’t sure what Bobby’s talking about, which of Dean’s many problems Dean could’ve called about: Dad or Sammy or the sawed-off, maybe. 

“Bobby, can we just –” Dean stops to take a deep breath. He lifts his left hand and puts it to his forehead. He’s not used to playing the wimp card, but, with luck, maybe he’ll look pathetic enough for Bobby to drop it. “Can we just talk about this some other time?” 

“Some other time like tomorrow? Or some other time like in a year?” 

The corner of Dean’s lips digs into his cheek, but he thinks he looks more like he’s grimacing rather than smiling. “You sound like Sammy.” 

“I take it you two didn’t part on great terms, then,” says Bobby. 

_Sonofabitch._ “Bobby –” Dean warns. He shuts his eyes and massages his temples, because his head actually does hurt: a lazy, throbbing pain behind his eyes as his concussion makes his brain slop around inside his skull. 

“Because Sam and John had been gunning for it for months, but you and Sam –”

“It’s not my fault Sam decided to leave, okay?” and the words are so hard to get out because Dean’s angry, not because his throat’s closed up against hot, sticky regret. It’s a lie: it is Dean’s fault, and it’s Dean’s fault that Sammy’s stayed away. So heavy. Everything’s so Goddamned heavy. 

“You could call him, you know,” Bobby suggests with a snort, like he’s unimpressed with Dean’s lack of ingenuity. 

“You said his phone’s been disconnected,” Dean answers. 

“There are other ways to get in touch with people, Dean,” Bobby says patiently. “You’re a smart kid. I bet you could even figure ‘um out.” 

Dean doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He’s sick of arguing. He’s sick of talking about Sammy. The silence drags on, pregnant and uncomfortable. 

This might be the first time he’s ever argued with Bobby, Dean realizes. Bobby and Dad have argued plenty of times, even Bobby and Sammy a couple of times, but that’s just because Sam likes to argue with everyone. But Dean’s never argued with Bobby before, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like to argue with people who remind him of Dad, because he’s not supposed to argue with Dad. Not ever. 

“Listen, Dean,” Bobby finally breaks the silence, standing carefully and stretching out his aching joints. “I’ve got to head out. I need to drive back to Sioux Falls, got some calls I need to take. I’m sorry to leave you here again, but I’ll be back tomorrow morning. By then we can probably sweet talk ‘um into checking you out.” 

Bobby clearly tacked on the last part to make Dean feel better. It doesn’t work.

“Okay, sure,” says Dean. 

“It’ll only be a night, Dean, I promise,” says Bobby. He sounds too much like he’s trying to talk a two-year-old down from a tantrum. 

“I said _fine_, Bobby. Jesus,” Dean snaps. And he hates himself. He hates how needy he is. He hates how he wants to beg Bobby to say. He hates how desperately he doesn’t want to be alone right now, even if it’s just for another night. 

“Alright, Dean,” Bobby straightens his hat. “Listen, I’ll get you out tomorrow. You can rest up at my place for a few days. I’m sure your dad won’t be too long with whatever’s keeping him in Minnesota. With luck, you’ll be healed up by the time he’s done and you two can go back out on the road together.” 

“Yeah,” says Dean. Maybe Bobby’s looking for something more, or maybe he’s thinking about saying something else, because he fidgets for a minute beside Dean’s bed. But eventually he makes the decision to go, and Dean looks at the wall as he leaves. 

OOO

Part of Dean hopes his chest tube will clear up enough to take out before night, that way Dean could sneak off by himself and not have to worry about facing Bobby in the morning or days locked up in his house with his mother-henning. 

Unfortunately, the chest tube stays in, but they do take the catheter out and Dean’s able to hobble to the bathroom by himself, even if Wendy has to trail behind with the drainage pump and IV stand. They even let him try solid food like a big boy, and he manages to eat the hockey puck hamburger without barfing, which is a Goddamn miracle because it’s the most disgusting slab of meat he’s ever tried to swallow. 

Wendy’s cheerful and tries to get him to talk about football or video games or if he’s got a girlfriend or something else guys his age are supposed to be interested in. Dean’s mostly concerned with not talking about anything, so he yells at her to leave him alone, and she looks hurt, which makes Dean feels guilty. 

“Dean,” she says softly. Dean’s entire body goes ramrod straight with tension, making his chest hurt. He knows that tone. It’s the _this is Sammy, your little brother_ tone and _Mommy’s not coming back, Deano_ tone all rolled into one: all sickly-sweet sympathy and tenderness. “You’ve just experienced a traumatic event. It’s natural for you to feel depressed. The hospital staffs people who can –”

“I’m not fucking depressed,” Dean snaps at her. _And I don’t want to fucking kill myself,_ but he doesn’t add that last part because he’s not entirely sure she’d believe him if he told her. “I just want to get out of this shithole.” 

She smiles indulgently at him, and Dean can’t tell whether or not he’s convinced her. He thinks _not_, but she at least drops the issue. “I know, sweetie. I know.” 

Which is frustrating, because he wasn’t looking for understanding, he was looking for someone to fucking yell at. 

OOO

Bobby’s back in the morning, just like he said he would be. Dean berates himself for the ridiculous rush of relief he feels when the older man walks back into his room. He even brings Dean a clean change of clothes, because the clothes the hospital took off of him are still covered with dirt and blood. 

They finally pull the chest tube out, which hurts like a fucking bitch, and Dean swears through his teeth while Bobby tells him to quit being such a whiny baby, but he keeps a hand on Dean’s arm to give him something to focus on. 

Dr. Andersen wants to keep Dean for another night, so Dean spits at her, “I swear to fucking God, I will swan dive out of that window if I spend one more Goddamn second in this hospital room.” 

She cocks an eyebrow, and Bobby’s eyes darken with concern and, dammit, poor choice of words. 

But Bobby gets the gist of it and takes up Dean’s cause. He manages to weasel the checkout papers off the doc after a couple minutes alone with her in the hallway and out of Dean’s earshot, during which the two of them spent an uncomfortable amount of time gesturing toward Dean. 

“Need help getting dressed?” Bobby asks when he comes back in. 

“No,” Dean grunts. 

“Don’t be modest, boy,” Bobby retorts. “Remember, I’m the one you came to when you got that rash after –”

“Fuck, Bobby! I’m fine!” Dean cuts him off quickly, waves him away impatiently, but not before his face is aflame and Bobby’s grinning devilishly. He waits in the hall as Dean completes the torturous process of getting back into jeans and a t-shirt. 

He can’t bend over far enough to get his boots on, but he calls Wendy in to help instead of Bobby. He flips Bobby the bird over Wendy’s head as Bobby shakes his head and says around another shit-eating grin, “I’m just gonna have to take ‘um off for you when we get to my place, kid.” 

Wendy finally sends Dean home with strict orders to keep up his breathing exercises or risk another collapsed lung, a course of antibiotics, and some Vicodin. Dean tells Bobby to just dump the prescriptions in the trash; he’s gotten along without meds before, but Bobby pockets them anyway. Dean can hear the pills rattle as Bobby pushes him out of the hospital’s front doors in that dumb wheelchair Dr. Andersen makes Dean ride out on. 

Maybe the wheelchair isn’t such a bad idea, because just climbing into the front seat of the Impala leaves Dean gasping for breath and dizzy. And maybe leaving the hospital a day earlier than the doctor wanted isn’t a great idea either, but Dean sure as hell isn’t going to turn back now. 

“I hope you don’t mind me driving her,” Bobby says, “but I figured you’d like the taste of home.”

“Nah, it’s fine, Bobby,” Dean answers, settling into the passenger seat. Bobby didn’t go overboard with his cleaning: the garbage and leftover booze is gone, and it smells a little like bleach, but the blanket and pillow are still in the backseat with Dean’s dirty clothes. “Dad gave her to me, but doesn’t really feel like mine yet, ya know?” 

Dean’s not sure why he adds that last part, but he immediately wishes he hadn’t. He doesn’t want to jumpstart a chic flic moment. And the confusing feeling rising in his chest at the thought of this car are certainly plenty enough for a fucking chic flic moment. The car feels significant somehow, like it’s just another empty spot in the puzzle that Dean can’t fit himself into. That’s just all Dean is – some kind of malformed puzzle piece. He doesn’t fit anywhere. He thought he fit between Dad and Sammy but…whatever. 

_Fucking whatever._

“She will, Dean,” Bobby says. He turns the key in the ignition and wheels the Impala out of its parking space. “It might take some time, but she will.” 

“Yeah,” says Dean. But he’s already done with this conversation. He doesn’t want to tell Bobby about puzzle piece analogies, about how this car has somehow transformed into both home and deathbed, all in the course of one night in a Walmart parking lot. He doesn’t know how to explain how badly he wants to scrub those memories out of the Impala’s upholstery, how no amount of bleach is ever going to manage it. He’s dirtied up the Impala, now, in more ways than Bobby will ever be able to see. 

Dean doesn’t bother with the seatbelt. He doesn’t want to deal with the extra pressure on his ribs, anyway. 

“You probably want this back, huh?” Bobby asks, and digs out Sammy’s amulet from his jacket pocket. He chucks it to Dean and Dean catches it in his left hand. 

“Yeah, thanks.” Dean struggles to hang it back around his neck one-handed. “Fuck this,” he finally says, and tears apart the Velcro fastenings on his elbow brace. 

“Dean,” Bobby objects. 

“It’s just a bruise, Bobby,” Dean says. “It’s fine.” 

“You’re barely out of the parking lot and you’re already disobeying doctor’s orders,” Bobby shakes his head, but his smile is fond. 

Dean flexes his right elbow experimentally and winces at the resulting twinge, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. He’s still got a bandage around his hand where Lily scraped him up, but he’ll leave that for now. 

It’s snowing outside, fat and lazy flakes drifting from the clouds, and Dean watches for a little while as they hit the window and melt into beads of water. 

“Listen, it’s a four-hour drive,” Bobby says. “You wanna grab something to eat? You’re looking kinda peaky.” 

“Nah, I’m good,” Dean says. It’s true, he’s not hungry. He thinks maybe he should be, because the only things he’s eaten lately was a hockey puck for dinner and a bowl of stick-to-your-ribs oatmeal this morning, but the idea of food makes him want to throw up, which is something he really doesn’t want to do, considering Bobby just cleaned out his car after the last time. 

“You sure?” Bobby side-eyes Dean, and Dean doesn’t miss the note of concern in his voice. 

Dean shrugs, tries for off-handed. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna just try for thirty or forty winks.” 

Bobby doesn’t respond. Dean has a niggling feeling that Bobby doesn’t believe him. The silence that falls between them is awkward, and Dean closes his eyes just to keep up appearances; there’s no way he’s actually going to fall asleep with the car bumping over potholes and jarring his ribs every few seconds. 

Silence between Bobby and Dean has never been uncomfortable before, mostly because there’s never been much silence to deal with. Dean’s used to Sammy yammering in the backseat, or Dean and Bobby trading dirty jokes they picked up in bars, or else its Dad and Bobby in the front, talking over a hunt, while Sammy and Dean eavesdrop in the back. 

Dean’s not used to this: quiet pressing on his eardrums, sticky and expectant, like there’s something Bobby wants to say that Dean really, really doesn’t want to hear. 

After an hour, Dean can’t take it anymore – the silence or the potholes, so he cracks open an eyelid and asks, “You got those – ah – pain meds handy, Bobby?” 

“Sure,” Bobby grunts and pulls them out. “You need me to pull over and grab water from the back?”

“Nah,” Dean says. He scans the label for the proper dosage, doubles it, and palms the pills into his mouth. Dry-swallowing them is probably not the smartest idea, but Dean doesn’t have great track record when it comes to smart ideas, lately, and he nearly chokes as he works the pills down his dry throat. 

Bobby doesn’t say anything, not even to rib him about trying to be a tough guy, which Dean finds more disturbing than he’s willing to admit. 

Whatever. The meds work their magic. Everything goes pleasantly blurry around the edges of Dean’s vision, and Dean lets them nudge him into a light doze for the rest of the drive.


	6. Chapter 6

Rumsfeld greets the Impala with booming barks, but he can probably recognize the Impala’s sound and smell, because he’s wagging his tail when Bobby pulls the car into park. 

Dean glares daggers at Bobby before he can even think of suggesting to help Dean out of the car, and Bobby huffs in exasperation, but doesn’t say anything as Dean fumbles with the door and slowly eases himself to his feet. 

Rumsfeld jogs over, snuffles for a minute at Dean’s boots, but then loses interest and disappears into the junkyard. Dean tries not to feel too hurt; the mutt always liked Sammy more. 

It’s hard work, keeping upright, on the way to Bobby’s door, but Dean sets his jaw and slogs through it, right arm gripping his chest tightly as every step snags against his ribs. 

Bobby holds the door open for him, and he has Dean’s duffle on his shoulder. Dean shuffles past him and all but collapses on the ratty couch waiting for him. For a little while, Dean just focuses on steadying his breathing, cursing Wendy for telling him to breathe normally, because breathing normally sucks. 

Bobby putters around behind him but emerges after a second to hand Dean an ice pack and a bottle of cherry red Gatorade. 

“Hydrate, sport,” he orders. 

Dean makes a nondescript noise of disgust in the back of his throat, but does as Bobby says, sucking on the end of the straw with ill-grace and wondering why all of the worst foods are red – jello and Gatorade and apples. 

Dean accepts the ice pack with more gratitude, and presses it to his aching side with a groan of relief. 

“Here,” Bobby returns again with a pillow and blanket. He fixes the pillow behind Dean’s back and helps Dean slump lengthwise on the couch. He bends over Dean’s boots and shoots Dean a smirk. 

“Shut up,” Dean says. 

“Didn’t say a damn thing,” Bobby says, and unties Dean’s boots, easing them off one by one. 

Bobby leaves Dean with the television remote and a handful of car magazines in easy reach. Dean sleeps on and off on the couch for the rest of the day, pain meds and low-grade fever keeping him drowsy. Bobby reads quietly in the chair, which Dean thinks is strange, because he’s sure Bobby’s got better things to do than keep silent vigil over Dean’s comatose form. 

And it all makes Dean feel guilty – in moments he’s lucid enough to feel anything at all. Lazing around’s more than excusable considering he’s nursing a couple broken ribs and a Goddamned skewered lung, but Dean can’t shake the feeling he’s supposed to be doing something else, that he’s somehow letting Bobby down. He’s clearly an inconvenience, interrupting whatever else Bobby’s supposed to be doing. 

Bobby doesn’t say anything, though, just plays nursemaid without a complaint, even though it makes Dean squirm. Bobby shakes him awake occasionally to force more Gatorade down his throat, offer soup – which Dean declines, switch out the ice pack, or give him more pain meds. 

“You can just leave ‘um here, Bobby,” Dean murmurs after Bobby shakes a couple Vicodin into the cap and hands it over to Dean. 

He’s out before he realizes that Bobby never responds, and when he opens his eyes again, the pills are gone, and Dean doesn’t know why that’s such a troubling thought. 

At dinner, Bobby won’t take no for an answer about the soup, so Dean, grumbling, takes the offered bowl to appease him. Then Bobby goes all matronly and puts the back of his hand against Dean’s forehead. 

“Quit it,” Dean snaps and tugs his head away. 

“You always this much a girl?” Bobby says. He returns a minute later with a glass of water, Dean’s antibiotics, and an extra strength Advil. 

“Screw you,” Dean spits but swallows back the pills with a swig of water. 

“Your daddy’d have me by the balls,” Bobby replies. 

Dean barely manages three spoonsful of soup before the nausea rises so strongly in his throat that he thinks he going to puke right into his lap. He lays his head back against the armrest, breathing hard.

Finally, he swallows back the churning in his stomach and chokes out, “Got any whiskey?” 

Dean’s fairly certain the bad taste in his mouth has more to do with whatever’s wrong with Dean than with Bobby’s culinary expertise, because Bobby’s a pretty decent cook for being a backwoods bachelor. 

“Nope,” says Bobby, nursing three fingers in a glass. 

“Come _on_,” Dean moans. “You’re the one who gave me my first taste, don’t dry up on me now!”

“No, Dean,” Bobby says firmly. “Ain’t gonna happen if you still want that Vicodin.” 

“Whatever, Nurse Ratched,” Dean mutters under his breath. 

“Bitch all you want,” Bobby says, “but you’re a little too friendly with booze lately, and twenty-two’s too young for cirrhosis.” 

_Oh._

And Dean wants to say something like _what is this, an intervention?_ or _you’re one to talk,_ but there’s something in Bobby’s eye that makes Dean shut up, and he wonders if Bobby’s somehow guessed about the alcohol before the hunt. The thought sends a shiver rattling up Dean’s spine, makes something buzz in the back of his head. 

“Whatever,” Dean mutters again, and pushes his soup away. If he wasn’t hungry before, he sure as hell isn’t hungry now. He closes his eyes and tries not to think. 

OOO

“Come on, kid,” Bobby prods Dean into a sitting position after an indeterminate amount of time. Rumsfeld’s snoring with his head on his paws, lying in front of the front door. “You won’t thank yourself in the morning if you spend the night on the couch.” 

“Lemme go,” Dean grumbles, but the protest is half-hearted as Bobby grips his left elbow and helps lift Dean to his feet. Dean doesn’t even think to object as Bobby supports him up the stairs to the guest bedroom, the one he and Sammy have shared since forever. 

Sammy’s bed is empty, and Dean tries not to look at it as Bobby dumps Dean on his own bed, but it draws his eyes like a casket at a funeral. As much as the Winchesters could have a home base, Singer Salvage Yard had been it. Everything looks the same as did since the last time Dean spent the night, back in March, which ended in a shouting match and Sammy sneaking an official-looking manila envelope into his bag when he thought Dean wasn’t looking. 

There are still a few of Sam’s and Dean’s stolen library books on the shelves, Sammy’s deflated soccer ball in the corner, and Dean’s baseball mitt dangling from the headboard. Dean knows there’s a shoebox of Hot Wheels under Sammy’s bed, leftover from when Sammy was eight, and there’s a backpack of Dean’s unfinished school assignments in the closet. 

“You think he’s got a roommate?” Dean murmurs, as Bobby pulls down the covers of Dean’s bed. 

Bobby sighs heavily. “Probably, kid.” 

“Fuck him,” Dean says, not sure if he means Sammy or the roommate. His eyes prickle, and he falls against his pillow. It smells like mildew and dust: like it always does, and that should help, but it doesn’t. There’s a lingering smell of melted plastic in the room, from when Sammy was five and jammed a Lego figurine’s head into the space heater. 

“Yeah,” Bobby says softly. He pulls the covers over Dean’s chest. Dean lets him. He’s glad Bobby didn’t turn on the lights, because Dean’s pretty sure he’s crying again, and that’s – this crying thing has got to stop. “Night, Dean.”

“Night, Bobby,” Dean whispers, voice catching in his throat, and he lays in bed for a long time after Bobby shuts the door after him, staring at the ceiling and listening to the silence that the sound of his sleeping brother is supposed to fill. 

OOO

Dean thinks about getting out of bed the next morning, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do if he does. Bobby could probably put him to work on some research, or cataloguing, or some shit. He should probably at least go down for breakfast and some coffee. The headache lingering behind his ears is the kind Dean gets when he goes too long without caffeine. 

But it’s just easier to stay in bed. It’s warm and familiar. Dean thinks about how he used to wake up Sammy by tossing rolled-up socks at his head. Sammy’d start awake almost before the missile even landed; they were both light sleepers, used to waking up at the drop of a hat or in case of an emergency. Had each other’s backs, even in the middle of the night. Dean should probably start sleeping with a knife under his pillow, or something, now that Sammy’s gone. 

“You died and gone to heaven, boy?” Bobby slams his fist on the door on his way down the stairs. 

It’s late. Dean can tell by the angle of the sunlight through the dust-coated window. 

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Dean growls back, but he’s not entirely sure if Bobby can hear him, or not, because he can already hear the older man thumping around in the kitchen downstairs. 

The Vicodin’s warn off by now after Dean’s last dose sometime during the night, when Bobby woke him up with a nudge to the shoulder and offered him a pill with a glass of water. Dean had been too groggy at the time to mumble more than _thanks_ and drift immediately back to sleep. 

There’s a deep, steady ache in Dean’s chest. It’s different than the sharp pain that’s been digging into Dean’s side ever since he got slammed by that dining room table. It’s calmer now, more settled, like it wants to stick around and chat for a bit. 

Bobby brought up Dean’s duffle for him; it’s sitting by the foot of Dean’s bed. Dean thinks about the tremendous effort it would take to bend down and unzip the bag, root around for his cellphone and check if he’s missed any calls. It’s been a week since Dad took off. He might have something to tell Dean by now. 

Or maybe he just wants to check in. Say hey. Ask if Dean’s alright. 

It’s been one-hundred and nineteen days since Sammy left. But it’s not like Dean’s counting. Dean’s fucking done with counting. 

_One two three four_ and by the time Dean hits one-hundred and nineteen _twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three_

It would be easier if Dean was angry at him. Sammy. 

It’d make things a helluva lot easier if Dean could yell at him or throw a punch. If Dean could take his little brother’s shoulders in his hands, even though Sammy’s been taller than Dean since he turned sixteen, and shake some sense into him. If Dean could shout into his Goddamn, stupid face _you didn’t even say goodbye, you little fucker. I wasn’t enough for you to stay and I wasn’t even enough for you to say goodbye._

Instead, Dean just feels empty. Drifting. And Dean’s not stupid. He knew it was coming. He’d been losing Sammy bit by bit ever since Sammy was eight-years-old and stole Dad’s journal. That’s when it all fell apart, when the distrust, resentment, and frustration crept in like noxious smoke. Sammy never looked at Dad the same way after that, and Dean should have stopped it; should have broken the truth in some other way, should have explained better, held on tighter. 

Dean had a rehearsal when Sam was sixteen and ran away on Dean’s watch, wound up living the high life in that cabin in Flagstaff for two weeks. When Dad found out he shoved Dean against the wall, hard enough to make his teeth rattle, punched the wall by Dean’s head instead of his face, and spat _your one job, Dean! Your one Goddamn job!_ Dean waited in the car while Dad went into the cabin to drag Sam out by the cuff of his shirt. Dean didn’t look at his brother the whole ride out of town, even though Sammy tried to catch his eye in the sideview mirror, gaze accusing like he thought Dean’d ratted him out. 

A couple days later, Dad hired Dean out as an extra gun for Walt and Roy on a hunt for a hag in Indiana while Dad and Sam headed to Orlando to deal with a banshee. Dean knew it was supposed to be a punishment; Dad’s message that he didn’t trust Dean’s eyes on Sammy anymore coming through loud and clear. It was the shtriga all over again. Sammy could have gotten killed, and it was all Dean’s fault. 

Dean busted up his knee while driving an iron spike through the hag’s heart, and he ditched Walt and Roy as soon as he could, wound up in a bar where he met that sexy yoga teacher, and for a couple desperate, fleeting nights, Dean thought about staying gone. 

“I’m not running a damn bed and breakfast, you know!” Bobby shoves through the door without knocking. Dean jerks upward in bed so quickly it makes his vision tilt. Bobby’s scowling and balancing a plate in one hand. 

Dean’s mouth drops to say something snarky, or apologize; he can’t decide. 

Bobby drops the food on Dean’s night table. There’s sausage, eggs, an English muffin, another pain pill, and a glass of orange juice. 

“I – ah,” Dean sputters, when he can’t think of an appropriate retort. And then he just feels kinda dumb. “Thanks, ah, sorry.” 

“Do I have to shovel it in for you?” Bobby glares at Dean, and Dean realizes that Bobby’s not going anywhere unless Dean eats, so he eases himself into a sitting position and braces himself against the headboard with a wince, body protesting the change in position. First down the hatch is the Vicodin, then he picks up half of the English muffin and takes a small bite.

Bobby looks far from placated. He continues to frown at Dean, arms crossed over his chest. 

Dean swallows his English muffin. He wants Bobby to quit looking at him, to take his damn breakfast and go away. Dean didn’t ask for a nursemaid. 

“Is there something on my face?” Dean snaps. 

“Starving yourself ain’t part of the deal, boy,” Bobby says.

“I wasn’t aware we made a deal,” Dean retorts. 

“Yeah?” Bobby shrugs. “Well, now you know.” He deposits himself on the edge of Sam’s bed, arms still crossed, and apparently not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Dean’s stomach squirms. It’s not like he can get out of the bed fast enough to get to the door before Bobby. He’s stuck there. He draws his plate into his lap and focuses all his attention into vindictively gulping down his breakfast, despite the roiling nausea that reawakens after the first couple swallows. He hopes Bobby is satisfied, the bastard. 

Bobby watches him the entire time Dean stuffs the food into his mouth, one forkful after another, and Dean wants to smash the plate right over his damn ballcap-covered head. 

Finally, Dean finishes. He throws his fork down on his empty plate with a clatter. “Happy?” he spits, glowering at Bobby, but he’s breathing hard through his nose to settle his stomach. 

“What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?” Bobby’s face goes red with anger. “You damn near got yourself killed. You’re barely talking to me. You’re not eating. You’re drinking on the hunt!” When Dean opens his mouth to object, Bobby shouts louder, “What? You expect me to believe that ghost would’ve got the jump on you if you were sober?”

“I’m fucking _fine,_ Bobby!” Dean says sharply. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

Bobby shakes his head. He says in a low growl: “You can’t let yourself go to pieces every time John or Sam leave, boy. Because you’ll set yourself up for a whole lot a’ hurt if you do.”

Dean sucks in a sharp breath, like Bobby’s just sunk his fist into his stomach. “Shut the hell up, Bobby!” He wants to be angry. He wants it to be anger that’s rising like bile in his throat, but it’s not. It’s panic. And Dean can’t stop it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You’re riding for a fall and you know it, Dean,” Bobby says. 

Dean’s heart beats frantically inside his chest. His hands are shaking as he throws off the covers and shoves himself up in bed despite the pang in his ribs. He swings his feet to the floor before he can lose momentum.

“Dean,” Bobby growls in warning, and moves like he’s ready to grab Dean’s arm. 

“Bobby, just no,” Dean reaches out a hand, trying to stop it from shaking, but he knows Bobby sees. Dean needs to get out, and he needs Bobby to understand this. He doesn’t want to do this right now. He can’t. Dean fucking can’t. He doesn’t want to do this ever. “I’m gonna take a freaking shower.” 

“No, you’re not.” Bobby’s standing in the door. Dean curls his hand into a fist on instinct, not caring about the pull of the cuts under his bandage. “Go right ahead.” Bobby holds his hands to shoulder height. “Take a swing at me. Maybe the exercise’ll do you some good.” 

“F-fuck off,” Dean says, gulping for breath. He wraps his right arm around his chest, shutting his eyes tight as his breath tears through his chest, leaving a wake of pain in its path. 

A sturdy hand grips Dean’s left shoulder and leads him firmly back to the bed, sit him down and props him against the headboard. Bobby stuffs a pillow into Dean’s arms, and Dean reflexively grips the soft cotton against his chest, gasping, trying to level out through the pain. 

“You said we’d talk about it some other time,” Bobby says relentlessly. Dean hears the creak of Sammy’s mattress as Bobby sits back down, giving Dean some space. “Guess what time it is.” 

Dean swallows. “Fuck off,” he says again. His voice is pathetically frail. A low simmer of shame starts up in his stomach. 

“I haven’t got anywhere to be, Dean,” Bobby adds. “So we’ll just wait until you calm down. And you can start when you’re ready.” 

Dean wants to curl into a ball and hide, but he has a feeling his chest wouldn’t like it, so he contents himself with keeping his eyes shut. _If I can’t see you, you can’t see me._ His body feels like it wants to rip itself apart. He can feel himself vibrating against the headboard. 

“Let your shoulders drop,” Bobby coaches from across the room. “Tension don’t help.” 

Dean breathes out slowly, relaxing his aching shoulders, which eases up the pressure on his chest. Slowly, the fight drains out of him. Then he’s just tired. His body hurts. He’s cold. Dean blinks his eyes open to fish for the blanket and draw it back over his legs, but it doesn’t really help. 

“You need anything?” Bobby asks. 

Dean needs a lot of things. Mostly he needs Bobby to leave him the fuck alone. Mostly he needs a bullet to the brain. Dean bites his lip, hard, and shakes his head. 

“Listen, kid,” Bobby says heavily. “I’m not your damn therapist. But I’m not going to sit by and watch you get yourself killed, capiche?” 

Dean digs his fingers into his eyelids, presses until he sees stars. He thinks he knows why Bobby’s been keeping a such a close eye on Dean’s pain meds. He wonders if he’s on some kind of suicide watch, here, and the thought makes him sick to his stomach. The shame in his belly reached boiling point, threatens to bubble over. 

“I’m just –” Dean starts, and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to explain. There are a lot of things that could come after _I’m just. I’m just alone. I’m just hurt. I’m just angry. I’m just scared. Just doesn’t want to be there anymore._ “I’m just tired.” 

Which sounds weak and stupid. But he feels so much more than tired. He feels old. He feels sick. He feels done. 

Dean fiddles with the blanket while Bobby watches, probably expecting Dean to go on. There’s a hole in the blanket and Dean worries his thumbnail through it. Holding the pillow to his chest, Dean feels like a little kid hugging a teddy bear, or something, waiting to be yelled at for doing something wrong. 

“Something interesting there?” Bobby asks. Dean gulps, drops the blanket, and makes himself level his gaze at Bobby. Because he’s not a coward. _Coward coward fucking coward_ and he should have pulled the damn trigger – 

Bobby’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and staring hard at Dean with an expression Dean remembers intimately from childhood: it’s Bobby’s _the talk_ face, the one he pulled out to explain to Dean that bricks aren’t a fair weapon when roughhousing with Sammy, that werewolves turn back into people after they die, that alcohol may be an aphrodisiac, but if Dean ever uses it to get girl into bed, then Bobby’d make damn well sure he wasn’t able to take anyone to bed again, _you understand me?_ And suddenly Dean is sixteen-years-old again, and too embarrassed to look Bobby in the eye. 

“So,” Bobby starts, eyebrows heavy, “should I be worried about all those guns and blades in your trunk?” 

An icy vice closes around Dean’s throat. Because Bobby knows. Somehow. Even though no one is fucking supposed to know. 

“Course not, Bobby,” Dean tries for a smile, goes for playing dumb. “I’m a big boy.” 

Bobby doesn’t smile back. His voice is flat, deadly serious, when he asks, “Is this something John should know about?”

The panic is sharp and immediate, “Bobby, no!” he gaps and it leaves Dean panting against the pillow, light-headed as he’s forced to remember his lungs still aren’t working to full capacity. His breath snags in his esophagus. He tries to work his throat around it, but it feels like something’s choking him. 

“Breathe, Dean. I got you.” Dean hears the creak of the mattress and Bobby leans forward and clasps his palm against Dean’s knee. 

“Bobby, no,” Dean says, forces it up his throat and through his teeth. “Just – just don’t. Okay?”

Dean wants Bobby to promise, desperately needs him to promise he won’t tell Dad about – about whatever _this_ is, but instead Bobby takes his hand back after patting Dean’s knee and sits up again. 

“I’ve seen it happen to better hunters than you, son,” Bobby says. “It’s a hard game. You don’t need to be ashamed.” 

“Dammit, Bobby, I’m not!” Dean blurts out, because the panic hasn’t left him yet. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, wasn’t supposed to have this conversation with anyone, but they’re fucking having it, and he wants it over. He’s horrified to feel his eyes fill with tears again. What the fuck is with him and crying lately? “I’m _not_.” 

“You’re not what, Dean?” it feels like Bobby’s got his knife back in Dean’s chest. 

Dean takes a deep breath, lungs squirming in protest, and then he says it, because Bobby’s not going to stop nagging if Dean can’t get a hold of himself. Just shut his eyes and tear off the band-aid: “I’m not going to off myself, Bobby. I promise.” 

Bobby takes a deep breath. He stares at Dean for too long. Dean wants to look away, but he makes himself meet Bobby’s gaze, because this is something he needs Bobby to believe. Because the alternative isn’t something Dean wants to even think about. 

“Alright, Dean,” Bobby says finally. Bobby pushes himself to his feet. He rolls his shoulders and stretches his back. “Alright.” 

Dean’s heart drops in relief, because it looks like the conversation’s finally over. 

“Take that shower now, kid,” Bobby’s voice is back to its familiar gruff register. “Then come on outside if you can make it. I’ll show you a couple things about that car o’ yours.” 

OOO

The hot water helps ease the pain in Dean’s chest enough that he’s able to pull a sweatshirt on and lace his boots without feeling like he’s going to pass out. He grits his teeth and finally checks his phone. 

There’s no messages from Dad. Or Sammy. Which means Dad doesn’t know Dean was hurt. Dean knows Bobby wouldn’t have told him without Dean’s permission, and Dean’s glad, because he’s really not ready for Dad’s disapproval when Dean finally coughs up the fact that he got drunk on a hunt and almost ended up with a bullet through his skull. 

With luck, maybe Dad won’t ever have to know. Maybe Dean will heal up well-enough to fake it through whatever hunt Dad offers him next, so Dean won’t ever have to explain about messing up the toddler-level salt and burn, won’t have to admit to letting Bobby help him but not his own father, because Dad certainly won’t take that one well: it’s not like Dad and Bobby parted on the best of terms.

But Dean decides to worry about that another day, and gingerly makes his way out to the salvage yard, where Bobby’s got the Impala’s hood popped. Bobby picks and prods for a little while in the hood, lapsing poetic about the 327 engine and the four-barrel carburetor, pointing out a couple tricks to Dean that he hasn’t already picked up from Dad. 

Rumsfeld comes poking around and Bobby scratches him behind the ears. “Dumb mutt,” he says fondly. 

Bobby’s always let Dean fool around with the cars in the yard. He’s picked up a few tricks of his own over the years, and he and Bobby argue about spark plugs for a while. The bandage around his hand gets in the way, so Dean unwinds it, revealing freshly scabbed lines across his fist. 

It’s calm and comfortable, working on the Impala, and Dean lets his mind drift as his fingers work through the oil and metal. He doesn’t feel so untethered with his head buried in her hood. It’s simpler: fixing things. He’s got the Impala purring by the time night falls and Dean’s shivering through his sweatshirt. He shuts the hood and lets his hand rest there for a minute, feeling cool metal against his fingers. 

“That’a girl, Baby,” he whispers to her, pats her once, and follows Bobby inside. 

Bobby makes him scrub the grease off his hands before he eats, and Dean bitches about Bobby being an old spinster. There’s more leftover soup for dinner, but it smells good, and Dean’s hungry, so he finishes three bowls in record time. 

Dean heads to bed for an early night, achy and exhausted, and he bats an impatient hand at Bobby when he reminds him about the antibiotics. “I know, _Jesus._” 

The next three days pass in the same way: quiet and still and easy. Dean works on cars and Bobby answers his phones. Sometimes Dean runs recon for him, flipping through old tomes and ratty notebooks for small details about monsters he’s never even heard of. After he stops popping Vicodin, Bobby even lets Dean have booze again. 

Dean can eventually breathe steady without wincing and climb the stairs without needing to catch his breath, by which time he’s itching for more action. Dean tosses around the idea of stuffing rock salt into shotgun shells. Bobby shrugs and reckons it’ll work fine enough, suggests Dean try it out with a couple tin cans out back, but Dean has a feeling Bobby’s compliance has more to do with wanting to Dean to work off some of his pent-up energy. 

Dad texts him on the fifth day, drops coordinates and a date into Dean’s inbox. And that’s Dean’s cue to get off his ass. 

It’s not that he’s sorry to leave. It’s just that he’d gotten used to being there. It’s comfortable, hanging around with Bobby, shooting the shit about cars and hunting and those anime movies Bobby brought back after his time in Japan. And Dean doesn’t exactly feel a pang of regret, not really, when he scans the guest room one last time, looking for anything he forgot to stuff back into his duffle, but finding all the things he remembers: soccer ball, baseball mitt, one of those dollar store green soldiers that get lost everywhere.

He’s angry at himself, for the almost-regret. Because he’s been moping about Dad not wanting him for more than a week now. He should be swelling with relief at the idea of joining him on another hunt now. 

He heads downstairs and finds Bobby waiting by the door. To his surprise, Bobby tugs him into a hug. 

“You call me if you need anything,” Bobby says over Dean’s shoulder. “Anything, Dean. I mean it.” 

It’s the first time Bobby’s made any reference to their previous conversation. Dean’s throat is strangely tight, with nerves and embarrassment and something else – something warm – when he says. “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Bobby. Really.” 

“And try to keep yourself in one piece?” Bobby adds when he lets Dean go. 

“You, too.” Dean matches Bobby’s smile. He heads out the door, tosses his bag in the backseat, and climbs behind the wheel. He waves once more to Bobby, who raises a hand in the doorway. 

His sawed-off is still in his duffle. It’ll stay there. For now. And Sammy’s still gone. And Dean never got to tell him goodbye. But at least Dad wants him back. And Bobby’ll be waiting. Dean presses his foot to the pedal and the Impala judders down the dirt drive. 

And, Dean’ll spend the trip to Waterloo, Iowa, where Dad’s waiting, counting miles instead of days. Instead of seconds. 

For what it’s worth, Dean can live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. Wow. This got gooey at the end. I hope you like it. I certainly used a lot of time on it that I should have used for grad school, but whatever. Fandom’s always worth it. 
> 
> Thank you for all kudos, bookmarks, and comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr where I psychoanalyze the boys, dissect incredibly minute details about the show, post bits and pieces about my fic, and look for friends: [foolondahill17](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/foolondahill17)
> 
> Also, if you enjoyed this story, feel free to leave a tip on my ko-fi: [LaurAnnPie](https://ko-fi.com/laurannpie)
> 
> (But never feel pressured to provide me money! Comments, Kudos, and Bookmarks are just as adored, and fanworks should always, always be free!)


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